Woodlife

I had a great weekend this weekend. After a few days rest after the Bushmoot, I was raring to go into the woods again. I started off on Saturday with a few pings of the bow and arrow. I met up with a colleague who shoots an American flatbow (now that bow has got some power) and we spent a good couple of hours shooting at standard target. I must admit, my shooting was complete rubbish probably because of lack of practice.

I excused myself after a couple of hours as I couldn’t wait to get into the woods. I had to try out some of my newly found tracking skills. I certainly found some tracks that I’d never seen before and although they weren’t exactly jumping out at me they were certainly easier to spot and identify. I also succeeded in following tracks from one surface type to another. This is something I think I’m really going to enjoy. Most tracks I identified were rabbit, but the odd fox and muntjac tracks were obvious as well. Before I knew it, a couple of hours had passed.

The next stage was to do a video. I decided to look at plants and fungi. I’ve been planning this mini-series for a while. The first subject was the good ol’ Crampball fungus. You can see the video by clicking on Pablo’s video’s on the links menu on the right. The next one (already in the “can” but needs editing) is about nettles. I had to reduce the resolution on the Crampball video and it’s not as good quality which is a bit disappointing. I just couldn’t edit it down any further. This is my first “talkie” and I’m not sure what to make of it. Your own voice always sounds stupid. The pic is a still from the video. A nice result and a great way to end the filming.

The temperature on Saturday soared into the high 20′s C and I found I was getting a bit dehydrated after filming. I sat by the the large ditch, watched the dragonflies and drank down a litre of water.

The red Common darter and Emperor were still about. I managed to get another pic of the female ovipositing.

On Sunday, the temperature climbed to 31C. I started off early and immediately sought the cool of the woods. I had no schedule or projects for the day, so I just sat under a tree and… yes …fell asleep! I don’t feel guilty doing this anymore (mmmmm??) and I can say that I’m officially “zoning in” and increasing awareness. I did however feel I had to do something, so I got out my new knife sharpening kit and had a go at the Companion and crook knife. The Companion ended up hair-popping sharp, but the crook knife still needs some more work. Obviously. it’s a bit more difficult to do as well. I’ll need more practice on that one.

I returned about 3pm, but as soon as it was cooler, Mrs Pablo and I went for an evening wander (from which we’ve just returned). On the way back, we saw three foxes laying up in a nearby field. They seemed completely at ease with us (the wind was in the right direction). After a while, they hopped into the hedgerow. Guess where I’ll be going the next few evenings.

So it was a bit of a mixed bag this weekend. I was going to post the 2nd part of the Tracking course review but I thought this would be a better for Sunday as it’s all fresh in my mind. I’ll post the tracking course review on Wednesday.

See you then and thanks for the visit.

Pablo.