Woodlife

I’ve had a day catching up on emails, blogs and sleep after returning from Majorca. Naturally, I spent a couple of hours in the local woods seeing what was new. A few clumps of Lesser celandine was growing well and several bright yellow Brimstone butterflies were out and about.

I thought of the difference between these woods here and the woods I visited in Majorca. S’Albufera woods are squeezed between the sandy coastline and the wetlands of the National Park. They are covered mainly by conifers and the area is obviously well managed with tracks and trails to follow. Some areas leading to the dunes were protected to prevent erosion. I spent a day winding in and out of the smaller trails, foraging on the beach and photographing anything of interest. This amounted to a number of different plants that I’ve yet to identify and general views of the area. The woods floor was generally sandy based and covered with pine needles

inter-dispersed with low bushes and grasses. In some areas the foliage was quite dense, while other areas were sparse with just the conifers standing alone and eerily angled and shaped by the northerly wind. The two different types of areas gave the woods a bushcrafters dream for sites. Some of the denser areas provided natural shelters out of the foliage without the need to build and the conifers would have provided more than enough choice for rigging tarp and hammock.

If out bushcrafting for any length of time, water and natural food would have been a problem. There was no flowing water and I saw little evidence of mammals. Smaller rodents maybe (judging by a couple of chewed pine cones) but few rabbit droppings and certainly no larger mammals like deer. Bird-life was a different matter and I spotted a number of species common to UK areas, like the Wrens, Blackbirds, Pigeons and Thrushes. My aim to get a photo of the wonderful Hoopoe failed. I saw a number of them but I was too slow with the camera.

Fire would not have been a problem. Of course in this tinder dry area fires are forbidden, but some areas were littered with deadwood. A forage on the beach would also have provided more than enough drift wood. Tinder was also abundant with the dried grasses and sedges cropping up in the areas bordering the dunes.

All in all, it was a good day’s exploration. I’ll describe the other excursions to the wetlands, mountains and bronze age Taliots over the next few weeks.

Pablo.