Pablo’s Woodlife: Wildlife, Tracking and Bushcraft

My mate Paul and I headed south to meet up with the Reading Group on Friday afternoon. A little rain was forecast but the whole weekend turned out fine and dry.

After a hot and sticky walk-in we arrived to find the parachute already up and a brew on the go. Mark presented me with a fine looking kuksa as a gift for doing the Reading group forum. I was completely overwhelmed and promptly planned what liquid substance should go in it. Well - it’s got to be sealed properly hasn’t it?

We woke up to a beautiful day on Saturday and after breakfast, a couple of us went roving with the bows to do a bit of stump shooting. I’d brought along the Samick SKB, the length of which proved ideal in the particular closed-in area of woodland we chose to shoot in. We all did pretty well getting close to the challenging choices of target and in a couple of instances even killed a stump or two!

Mark had brought along a large awl which enabled the construction of some wooden chairs. John decided to assemble what can only be described as a throne, which was in keeping with his heavy-weight style of camping. Hence he was dubbed “His Majesty, King John” for the rest of the meet. The chairs will be kept on site ready for the next meet.

Some of us went for a wander after lunch and ended up tracking along the moderately fast flowing stream. There was a lot of damselfly activity and I spent some time trying to photograph the amazingly coloured and aptly named Beautiful demoiselle (Calopteryx virgo).

We followed some tracks along the stream bank and decided it belonged to a small fox. The tracks ended up at a kill site where the only evidence left of the prey was a claw of a crustacian. Looking again at the photo I’m not too sure if there might be other tracks in there and I wish I’d studied the area in more detail at the time. Other tracks seen were roe, fallow, muntjac, mouse and a number of birds that had hopped along the bank. There was still no sign of the elusive water vole tracks.

The evening meal was a barbeque of literally tons of meat mostly provided by King John.
Earlier, Steve (who was on my Shadowhawk tracking course) and I identified a good sit spot covering an area where there might be some evening mammal activity. Andy had already spotted a fox cub, and muntjac had been heard the previous evening. After the barbeque, along with Andy we sat for an hour being bitten to death by mosquitos! The sum total of our sightings? One rabbit, five hundred and three mosquitos - oh and some sheep! Well, you can’t win them all.

One of the best things about meets is that you can share experiences and stories around the fire. With new faces comes new stories and experiences. Knowledge is shared, kit examined and compared, and tips are passed on. This meet was no exception. John was busy dying a leather water bottle while Mark had made a fantastic flute case. You can see these pics on the network.

Prior to packing up on Sunday, conversation meandered on to the dreaded tick subject mentioned in my last post. This prompted everyone to start examining themselves. Low and behold ticks were found on nearly everyone’s legs. A tick removal session then took place. Anyone watching would be forgiven in thinking that a strange bunch of primates had invaded the woods and were busy de-fleaing themselves. Mark’s pocket microscope (is there nothing that he dosesn’t have handy?) showed in real terms what a monstrous looking creature the tick is.

A certain lesson learned and a good tip is to tuck the trousers in to socks or put elastics around the bottom of the trousers. Those with sleeping areas on the bracken slopes (myself included) should also have cleared a path through the bracken leading to the hammock. Whatever the precautions though, it’s inevitable that you will get a couple if you go tracking or exploring through the undergrowth.

All too soon it was time to say our goodbyes and leave the site. We doused the fire and cached the pot hangers. Another excellent weekend and a big thanks to Mark for organising the meet and everyone else that came along.

Pablo.

A series of statutes passed in the 14th and 15th centuries banned a large number of field sports and other games in order to protect regular archery practice. Edward IV passed a law that every Engishman from the age of 16 to 60 should own a longbow (of his own height) and to practice every Sunday after church and on feast days. In 1542 an Act established that the minimum target distance for anyone over the age of 24 years was 220 yards (!) A trained archer could shoot 12 to 15 arrows per minute and hit a man-sized target at a minimum of 200 yards. All men from 16 to 60 had a duty to protect the country in time of crisis (the posse comitatus). The acts have never been repealed.

In a law case (Oxford police v. hales, quinn, fairclough et al.) the defendants had set up archery targets on the high street and were prosecuted. Their defence was that archery was a legal duty. The magistrates concurred and allowed their defence but fined each defendant 10 guineas plus costs for failing to wear their swords during the exercise.

It was with this ancient law in mind that a few stalwart archers from the Essex Bushcraft group, bravely mustered at midday on a private field in a bitterly cold northerly wind to practice shooting at 25 meters at a paper crow stuck on to some hay bales. They each had their Bushcraft knife at their sides.

Master archer John managed to group well, while Mark managed to hit the straw bale(once) with his 7ft home made Ash bow. Pablo, with his small hunter bow without sights, grouped badly but scored well finishing with an amazing kill shot from a kneeling position (try that with yer Long Bows ha ha).

A great few hours with lots of Bushcraft talk. It was great to meet JP from Bearclaw. What with him and Les from Wildcrafts, the December meet should be amazing.

How many of you broke the law today by not practicing? (Members of other countries exempted of course).

Pablo.

After a week of rain the weekend turned out nice with sunny spells. Saturday saw me back into the local woods armed with camera and the Korean Samick SKB bow. I am going to take the bow to the bushmoot next weekend, so I wanted to do a couple of practice shots. As I had the video camera with me, I had a go at doing a movie of the practice. You can see the results at the end of this post or on Pablo’s Video Channel link on the right.

After doing the shoot and after breaking two arrow points and losing an aluminium arrow in the undergrowth, I gave up and sat in my favourite spot deep in the woods. The undergrowth was growing up fast and I imagined that after next weeks moot, my return to these woods would see the secret clearing completely enveloped by the nettles. It would soon be time for a little cutting back.

After a cereal bar and some water, I went off in search of some new wildflowers in bloom in the area. I wasn’t disappointed as I soon came across large areas covered by Forget-me-nots and Speedwell. Ragged robin also made patches of early appearance as well as Common comfrey. I was pleased to see this plant as I’d not seen it in this area before. It is a well known herbalist plant; the roots being used to make plaster of paris type sludge for setting bones and in fact some English folk names reflect this use being called ‘knitbone’ and ‘boneset’. The juice from the root can also be mixed with sugar and liquorice and used as a cough linctus. The whole plant can also be boiled and eaten like spinnach.

I also spotted a clump of Woody nightshade. Unlike the nightshade namesake of the Deadly variety, the red berries which appear in the autumn are not poisonous, but they will give you an upset stomach.

Next week I gear up (literally) for the moot and I’ll post my preparations on Wednesday or Thursday.

All the best,

Pablo.

I’ve been practicing with the bow nearly all weekend. Oh…you’re back then! You didn’t need to spend so long there! Unlike the game, this is getting quite an expensive past-time as I’ve lost 2 arrows and broken 2 others. At this rate I won’t have any arrows left for the field shoot next weekend. I’ve decided that I’ll buy an arrow jig and have a go at making them myself. I’ll probably do this after Christmas. At least I’m hitting the target most of the time and the grouping is getting a bit better. No more practice now until the big day next Sunday.

This bit of kit is a survival ‘ace’. The design allows the unit to be used one-handed which is a great advantage. This is because the thumb pushes against the catch which contains the striker. By pushing against this, and pushing the tip of the rod against a hard surface the rod is pushed down the spring-loaded tube. Looking closely, I realised that this very system might have one disadvantage. The part where you press your thumb to cause the necessary friction against the rod was also the tube catch which keeps the top closed. This part of the unit had already part-melted with the intense heat thus, because the top is closed under the pressure of the spring, it now ocassionally springs open. A point to note. Don’t push the flint rod too far down when striking. I wondered if this was a design fault. All it needed was a stopper to stop the rod going too far down the tube. It’s also advantageous to have something solid to rest the tip of the rod against as you push down. It doesn’t take a great deal of pressure to create the spark, but you couldn’t create a spark by pushing the rod into soft ground.

Even though I was getting warm working with the Blastmatch, my feet were getting cold with inactivity and I decided to walk around the wood. I noticed that the leaves were at last turning, but some were stubbornly hanging on to the trees. The bright light shining through them made a wonderful autumnal spectacle.

While Sam and the American Bushman talk about muzzle loading rifles, unbelievably at the same time, my attention has also switched to all things missile-firing, but in a more primitive way. Must be a winter thing when the ground is too soggy to camp. I have renewed my interest in archery and in particular field archery (as opposed to target shooting). I started up archery about this time last year and got caught up in the wave of excitement of seeing the arrow thud satifactorily into the target. After a while, I was pretty consitently getting close to the ‘gold’ at 25 yards. I instantly upgraded the bow and started hanging stuff off it in the form of sights and stabilisers. Not exactly what I planned when I first took it up, which was to use the bow as a means of recreating a traditional hunting method. I soon regretted the decision as it became a bit of a chore travelling to the archery club every week and once there, queuing for your turn to shoot at the target. I lost more interest as the fascination with bushcraft grew during the summer months.