Woodlife

As you can imagine, after a week indoors with a chest infection, I couldn’t wait to go back out to the woods. So far, I’ve not missed a weekend throughout the winter, which was something I didn’t expect when I first started Bushcraft. I think I described myself then as a fine weather Bushcrafter, but I’ve been out in the rain, shine, snow and frost and enjoyed every minute.

I started the weekend by doing a bit of Archery practice. I decided to set up a target as opposed to going into the woods itself. I wanted to really hone my point of aim. After a couple of hours, I was quite pleased with the grouping. I made a mental note to come out a practice more on the target just to ensure the point of aim is consistent.

It felt good to be back in the woods, even though I didn’t really have a specific project. I took the 3×3 tarp just to practice a couple of different configurations. I actually found it more difficult to do this than the smaller tarp and concluded that I would probably just use the larger tarp in the most simple configuration, extending the sides to the ground if the weather got bad. I do like to look out from under the tarp and the raised front type configuration is still my favourite. The large tarp is pretty good for this.

The weather was quite mild (10 degrees C) and the wildlife seemed to appreciate the reprieve from the latest cold snap. I managed to get close to a herd of 35 fallow deer in a nearby field (photo above). I also spotted what I think is arum lilly (poisonous) shooting through the leaf litter. A sighting of a dog fox, red legged partridges and mosquito larvae in a slow moving stream finished off a good weekend for wildlife spotting.