Woodlife

Although the temperature was about 5 C, the easterly wind was very cold…too cold to sit around and enjoy the view or partake in any bushcraft skills. The rest of the country is covered in snow as a cold spell hits the UK, but nothing this far east, apart from a few flurries. At least we’ve had some much needed rain the last couple days.

I’m still experimenting with how much kit to take a what to carry (and what to carry it in). At the moment, I’m using a small daysack (about 15 litres capacity) from Eurohike. I’m carrying a few basic tools in that (axe and folding saw) and some extra cold weather kit. I’m also using a small lightweight camera case containing binos, camera and journal (and a litre of water). I couldn’t resist buying a 55 litre backpack (again by Eurohike) from Millets at a bargain price of £23. I’ll try this out next time after I receive my tarp and Swedish Army Cookset I recently ordered.

I decided to try and find the badger sett. I knew it couldn’t be too far away because of the tracks I found a couple of weeks ago. I walked out of the woods and across the tarmac track and into a fielded area. The area has a few earth banks but apart from that it’s very open. The first thing that drew me to a certain bank was the obvious meandering tracks leading from a path to a certain earth bank. A sure sign of a badger track. All I had to do was notice where the track finished on the base of the bank. Low and behold, a whole load of fresh straw bedding on the side of the earth bank. On further exploration on the side of the bank, I found a good 7 entrances and the normal latrine pits nearby. These contained fresh spoor and confirmed that the sett was still active. The area is quite accessible and I should be able to watch the badgers in April and May.

On the way back I spotted the male fox (pretty sure it was the same one as a couple of weeks ago – very dark coat). He ran off to the east and simply disappeared from view. I found this quite strange as there was a wire fence surrounding the area. I searched the area to see where the hole in the fence was, but couldn’t find it. It was only then I realised that he must have gone to ground. Again, after a couple of minutes searching (must be my lucky day) I found a vertical hole in the ground, large enough for a fox. On closer inspection, I saw a paw print at the bottom of the hole. I set up my camera a few yards away and downwind to see if he would emerge. After 30 mins or so I gave up and started home. There was no sign.

Even though there was no bushcraft today, I was pleased with the sett and fox earth I’d discovered. This should set me up for some good mammal watching in spring.