Continuation from Saturdays entry… I had tracked the deer and spotted 5 of them on the outskirts of the wood. I originally identified them as Fallow but sitting under the poncho in the rain, I wasn’t so sure. The distance between us was about 50 meters, it was raining hard and even though one of them stood staring at me for a good two minutes, I was not convinced she was a Fallow deer. More likely a Roe. The easiest way of identifying between the two is to have a look at their rumps. Unfortunately, the deer I was looking at was side on. The Fallow has a striped effect rump (white and black rump with a black tail), while the Roe has a white rump (as shown in photo courtesy of museums.ncl.ac.uk). The Roe is smaller and is in fact the smallest of Britain’s native deer. They have become scarce in some areas of Britain. It seems nobody knows exactly why, but I believe they are becoming more widespread again. Certainly in this area of the country, they are quite abundant (except of course in these particular woods).

The more I mused, the colder I got. I had rearranged the poncho to stop the rain pouring through the hood (yes… a good idea to tie up the hood!) and I had angled the poncho to let the rain run off to my right. I had already had a good drenching because I had forgotten to do these simple tasks. It was not particularly cold, but I realised that a combination of damp clothes (what I was wearing had done a pretty good job so far), the lack of activity and the wind-chill was all having an effect of making me cold through to the core (or seemed that way). It was time to act and that didn’t mean walking to the van which was about a minutes walk away.

I gathered a few damp pieces of wood and tried to make a couple of feather sticks. I used my new Companion II knife for the first time and was pleased to say that it performed well. I, however didn’t and the feather sticks were not a great success. I pulled out the tinder from my shoulder bag and after making a small platform of wood and shavings, I lit the tinder with the fire steel. This wasn’t very successful either, and it was a good 5 minutes before the tinder caught. By this time, the shavings and feather sticks were damp again and it was extremely difficult to keep the fire going. The wind had also veered without me realising it at the time and was making matters worse by blowing strongly on the exposed part of the fire. On reflection, I should have a) kept more out of the wind by selecting a more sheltered spot and b) kept the tinder and kindling in a drier state.

All was not lost and at least I did get a small fire going. The fuel was very damp though and it soon petered out. It was certainly not enough to get warm and I considered that if I would have had to stay out longer, I would have needed to prepare the wood much better. Even though I was pleased with the knife, I certainly missed the axe for doing these wood chopping duties.

As it was, I had had enough. I had been out for 4 hours and I was getting colder and colder and wetter and wetter. My gloves were soaking and it was all I could do to take down the poncho and pull on my day sack. As with the axe, I certainly missed the tarp. Even the remnants of the flask of tea weren’t enough to warm me up. I retreated to the van and gratefully drove the short journey home.

An hour later, with feet still thawing even after a hot shower, I thought about the highs and lows of the day. I was delighted I had found the deer, but I wasn’t too pleased about the way I went about trying to ‘survive’. I had made a couple of fundamental mistakes setting up the poncho, the location of my site (nearly facing the wind and on top of a rise), and the lack of preparation for the fuel for the fire. I had nevertheless, actually got a fire alight even for a short time. I probably wouldn’t have been able to do that this time last year. I hadn’t panicked when things went wrong nor become frustrated and given up. Some of these things I might have done in the past. Still lots to learn though.