Woodlife

Last Sunday, the weather wasn’t as bright as forecast and there was still a strong arctic wind from the North East.

I packed my new – well surplus – 30 litre ex-Brit Army patrol pack with a light lunch, brew kit and sit mat and headed out to the local woods. I bought the pack last week. I’ll do a review of it when I’ve tried it out a few more times.

There was some remnants of snow left on the ground in shaded parts. The rabbit track looks like a slow hopping gait and you can see how the rear feet are kept together. I would guess that this one was steadily hopping about with no real sign of hurrying judging by the distance between the hops (which I forgot to measure). The right forepaw on the second set of tracks is pointing to the left slightly. Does this mean it was distracted and looked to the left? Who knows. The good thing about tracks in snow is that you can study gaits easier. Alas, there probably won’t be any more this year.

Talking of tracking, I’ve put up a short video of when I came across some deer a few weeks ago. You can access it on the video channel here. (There’s also a permanent link to the video channel in the sidebar).

On the spur of the moment I decided to light a small fire with only what I could find. The dead wood was very damp and I lit some birch bark with the firesteel. I’ve got to be careful because birch is pretty limited in these woods. I found it difficult to keep the fire alight, even after making some feathersticks. I really should have spent more time initially exposing the drier inner parts of the woods. There was enough heat to make a brew though.

While having lunch and a brew, I watched an interesting spectacle. The pair of buzzards were showing great interest in the rooks’ nests and even though the rooks were busy building they didn’t seem too bothered about the buzzards being there. I would have thought the rooks would have seen them off. One of the buzzard pair even landed in an unoccupied nest. Squatters rights or the neighbours from hell!

I also spotted some frog’s spawn in a puddle. I doubt this will survive the drop in temperature. I had to look up the difference when I got home because I’d forgotten which was frog’s and which was toad’s spawn. Common toad spawn is laid in a long double strand, although Natterjack toads just lay a single strand. Frog’s spawn is laid in a circular clump. The frog will undoubtedly lay more when the weather gets warmer.

I finished off the day by watching 2 pairs of lapwings in the field and a pair of mallards enjoying a feed in a flooded grassy area.

This weekend I’m off to East Sussex with JP and the crew. JP’s got a new bit of kit for me to play with, so I’ll be writing about that next week.

Thanks for the visit.

Pablo.