The last week I’ve managed to have a few great days out finishing off my holiday nicely. I’ve visited all the local woods and spent Friday night out with a 24 hour excursion.

I didn’t really have a particular project, but I wanted to make a few changes to my 24 hour kit. The idea was to try and make everything fit in my new 30 litre bag. The first thing I changed was to swap out the SA Trangia for a simple Trangia burner, Hexy cooker stand and Crusader cup mix. This cut down on a lot of bulk and weight. I decided to take the larger tarp, as I’d not slept under this before. Again took the trusty DD hammock.

The other change I made was to split the utility bag into two, putting tarp pegs, bungees and cordage in one while putting the headlamp, sharpening stone and water purifier in the other. Not exactly saving weight here, but more manageable. I also decided to take just 2 litres of water in two water bottles instead of 3 litres in the water carrier. This would also save space in the bag. The result was that indeed, everything fitted nicely into the 30 litre bag (except the Nanok sleeping bag). My shoulder bag took the usual additional stuff including the new GB mini hatchet.

It was a standard night out: The cacophony of the Rookery at dusk; Badger watch with no sign of a Stripey at all (!); a nice open fire to end the evening with warmed up soup; woken by barking muntjacs at 3am; woke at dawn and climbed out of the hammock as the sun warmed the wood at 10am with a squirrel staring at me from about 3 feet away.

I also decided to try Seorus’s idea of putting the Thermarest inside the sleeping bag. The Nanok bag has a zip each side, therefore it was quite easy to slip the Thermarest inside it, get in the bag while the bag is in the hammock and zip it up (instead of getting in the bag before ‘falling’ into the hammock as I usually do). The system worked well and as stated by Seorus, the Thermarest didn’t slide around in the hammock. Usually I wake up with the Thermarest a 45 degrees to the hammock and the foot of sleeping bag pointing out at the same angle the other way! I’ll certainly try this method again.

I realised that by leaving the Trangia behind I’d also left my spork, which would make eating my lunchtime tinned Ravioli a bit awkward. So I quickly fashioned a simple fork using the Opinel. Ha! This is what Bushcraft is all about. Adapting to the situation (as simple this might be on this occasion). It was only the thought of a decent dinner waiting for me that I left the woods in the middle of the afternoon.

Today was an ideal day for taking a walk around Broak’s Wood, with temperatures in the 20′s C and clear sunny skies. These ancient woods never cease to amaze me and I’d quite forgotten that this time of year yields a spectacular display of Bluebells in the older part of the wood. English woods have some of the best Bluebell displays in the world and account for 20 per cent of the world population of the flower. One has to be aware that there are hybrids; the native Bluebells interbreeding with the introduced Spanish variety. To tell the difference, follow this link. You must be there to smell the wonderful sweet-scented fragrance of the Bluebell wood. Absolutely wonderful.

Other flowers in bloom were Red campion, Primula, Cowslips, Wild strawberry, White deadnettle, Ground ivy and Dog violet. I was pleased that I could identify these without looking them up. Speckled wood, Brimstone, and Peacock butterflies were quite abundant as well.

Oh well, back to work tomorrow!

Pablo.

 

I could only manage a few hours in the woods this weekend. I decided on the spur of the moment to have a go at making a fork. If you’ve ever tried this you’ll know that it’s not easy. I gouged away carefully at the gap between the prongs, but still managed to split the wood slightly. I’ll probably also have to harden the ends of the prongs over a fire or they’ll break too easily. Although it doesn’t look too bad, I don’t think it will last very long under constant use. I think I need more practice!

 

I spent the rest of the time looking at the plants growing on some waste ground. This is a good time to identify these plants as there’s a lot in bloom.

Cinnibar Moth catapillar on Ragwort – Ragwort is poisoness to most mammals

[edit] Burnet moth (possibly six-pot Burnet) on Common centaury

Tall melilot

Great willowherb

Birds-foot trefoil

Scarlet pimpernel

Vetch

Field bindweed

Cinqfoil

Common mallow

Small tortoishell on thistle

Self-heal

Thanks for the visit.

Pablo.

There’s just too much going on at the moment. It’s difficult to keep up with it all. I spent hours in Broaks wood just wandering along slowly trying to take everything in.

Greater Stitchwort.

Speckled wood butterfly. I also saw small cabbage whites, brimstones and orange tips.

The ponds are busy as well.

I think this is a recently hatched small red damselfly

I haven’t seen yellow archangel for a long time.

The show of bluebells never disappoint

They are iconic British woodland flowers

Why not show them off?

Wood avens or Herb Bennet, Wild strawberry, Bugle, Gorse, Herb Robert were all there as well.

Bird life was a little more difficult to see although I did catch a glimpse at a Nuthatch and I even saw a Swallow fly over.

My super-hearing detected a sound of movement in the leaf litter as I was watching the newts in a pond and I just managed to see a dark brown shape of a vole.

I also caught a glimpse of a Muntjac.

I followed the tracks and crotties for a while but lost them in amongst the undergrowth. There were some tiny tracks amongst them undoubtedy this years fawns but I didn’t see any.

Rain is forecast all next week. Who cares when the weekend is like this?

Thanks for the visit.

As I suggested, over the last month or so I’ve been busy filming spring in the woodlands around and about where I live.

I’ve enjoyed my new found freedom by occasionally taking off my aircast and I have been limping about the woods pointing the camera shakily at everything that moves.

I’ve put up the compilation of the footage on my YouTube channel (have look if you haven’t been there before).

If you don’t want to go to the channel, you can view the video footage below. It’s about 5 minutes long. By the way, this is the first footage in something called High Definition so I hope you enjoy it. If your connection is too slow, you can view it without HD by clicking on the HD button.

Pablo.

I went to Lowt’s wood for the first time in eight months. I haven’t been there before now because it’s quite a walk in and most of the wood is accessible only by climbing a steep slope. Having said that, it’s one of my favourite woods. It’s very quiet and despite being unmanaged, it looks nice.

I crept into the wood in case there was some Fallow deer about, but on this occasion there wasn’t. I meandered my way along the lower level and then climbed the steep slope to the higher parts of the wood. I stopped on the west side for a bit of lunch.

It was quiet with only a few birds and the distant mewing of a Buzzard. My lunch was bacon and eggs with beans cooked in the primus frying pan on my Optimus crux stove amongst the seeding heads of the spent Bluebells.

I took the opportunity to sort out my utility bag. I’m now carrying it in a drop bag so I can just put it any one of my rucksacks I take out with me.

After a bit of lunch I went to the south side of the wood and out into the field. The sun had come out and I was immediately attracted to the hedgerow where numerous insects had settled in the blazing heat.

Despite wanting to do a small carving project, I was kept fascinated by the comings and goings of the various insects, dragonfly and butterflies.

I spotted this Painted-lady speeding it’s way across the field and eventually it settled on the hedgerow. These come all the way from Africa. Apparently, they arrived in their thousands in May.

The dragonflies were represented by a single Common blue.

I spotted two types of caterpillar, the peacock butterfly (above) and large white butterfly.

The day ended with the usual snooze amongst the leaf litter back on the lower part of the wood before I headed home.

Thanks for the visit.

Pablo.

Last Tuesday, a sebaceous cyst I had on my neck became infected. Since then I’ve not been able to turn my head very well. I’ve felt decidedly ropey all week. This meant that I’ve wasn’t able to do the planned solo overnighter in Poor Park on Saturday. In fact I felt so bad, I did nothing on Saturday.

Well, that’s not strictly true. I decided to do some bushy admin. I replenished all my first aid kits, did some video editing, sharpened some knives and made some Woodlife keyrings.

Today was a little better and I was at least able to put a backpack on and visit Outfield woods.

On the way I spent some time watching the insect activity on the Ragweed and Thistle. This farmer leaves a good margin on his fields. It certainly attracts a myriad of different insect species…

…including this Painted lady and a Peacock behind it.

Outfield woods were dark and dank. These really are strange woods with a strange atmosphere, but I still like going there. There is zero human activity. The woods have not been managed for decades and the result is too much canopy cover resulting in very little floor vegetation and thus very few insect and birds.

Fallow deer pass through and sometimes a Fox or a Hare. It is the Fallow I go and see. I usually see them almost immediately and today was no exception, but I wasn’t particularly quiet and they stayed on the fringes of the woods.

The wood is a hazel coppice and there’s plenty of opportunity to cut a nice straight tracking stick.

I call this tree the tracking stick tree.

After a light lunch I made my way back just glad to get out. Back to the quacks tomorrow. This thing isn’t disappearing as fast as I would like.

Thanks for the visit.

Pablo.

I’ve set myself a bit of a challenge in the last few weeks. Instead of the normal pictures of spring, I wanted to photograph one species of each category of mammal, bird, amphibian, reptile, wildflower, butterfly in a spring setting, but one of each species that you don’t see too often. I gave myself a deadline of today.

Initially, I thought I had bitten off more than I could chew, but looking back, I’ve actually not done too bad. Unfortunately, the only one I couldn’t ‘collect’ was the reptile. The weather just hasn’t been warm enough for them to sun themselves. It’s still a little too early for dragonflies around this area as well.

I was worried that I would be stuck with the usual picture of a deer for the mammal category until, as luck would have it, we had a visitor to the garden yesterday and I managed to snap this little Bank vole eating some seeds.

The piece de resistance came when I photographed what I thought was a slightly different form of cowslip in Park Woods. When I showed it to our wildflower expert from Essex Wildlife Trust, he identified it as an oxlip. This is now a scarce flower and only found in this area of the East of England. The flowers are bigger and paler than the cowslip and haven’t got the predominant red dots inside the flower. I’ve since identified quite a few patches around the locality.

Erratum: The previously posted picture was of a cowslip which is very similar. The picture above is definitely an oxlip.

I was lucky to photograph this Sawfly lifting off from some Lesser stitchwort and together with the ladybirds, I deemed that to satisfy the criteria for the insect category.

The pendulous sedge isn’t at all scarce but is a good indicator of ancient woodland.

As for the choice of birds, I opted for this newly hatched wren. The nest has been made inside an unused external electrical box. Don’t worry, the electricity is off.

I’ve combined amphibians and pond life. There’s literally thousands of tadpoles in this large puddle.

I saw this Common frog not too far from the puddle. I think it’s still quite young and was very pale.

Not a great picture of a Speckled wood butterfly.

Bill and I have had great fun on this quest. Most of the time he’s come along and seems to have developed a nose for unusual events.

He spotted this young rook that had fallen out of the rookery.

If the rook remains hidden, he may well stay out of the foxes reach until he’s strong enough to fly.

Thanks for the visit.

Taking advantage of the good weather, I decided to stay over night in the local woods.

I like going to meets and seeing other folk but I also love staying in the woods on my own.

I took my Snugpak bivi bag, Exped synmat and a thin sleeping bag. I wanted to be low-profile in case the deer came close. As it turned out, I only saw them on the other side of the path about 50 yards away.

I took my mini trangia, the saucepan of which was good enough to heat up some rice and chicken while the little frying pan was sufficient to do a couple of rashers of bacon on edible plates (tortillas) for the morning’s breakfast. Of course the crusader is never too far away and serves to boil up water as well as a secondary cooking pot if necessary.

The heaviest item in the bag was 3 litres of water in an MSR Dromedary.

After looking around for night-activity (only more fallow and barking muntjac were seen) I came back and lit a token fire using my fire steel and some pine tree dust mixed in with maya stick scrapings.

There was no sign of the expected early morning deer activity at 4.30, so I had no option but to go back to sleep.

After the aforementioned bacon and egg and a cup of tea, I meandered around the woods and photographed anything of interest like these snails…

…this cardinal beetle…

…this speckled wood butterfly…

…and I think this is yellow pimpernel.

In the main, the wildlife stayed at a distance, but that didn’t stop me having a great time on my own in the woods.

It has been a while since I went to Broaks wood, so I thought I go for the day to see what was about.

“There’s a an Azure damselfly over there!” said a familiar voice.

“ I know, I’ve seen it”.

“You’re getting good!” said the dragonfly-man.

“I’ve had a good teacher over the years,” I replied.

The sticks were already put in at angles around the pond, making it easy to focus on the larger four-spotted chasers.

Of course, there was an abundance of wildflowers around the woods, including these common spotted orchids.

I’m not sure how this mole met his demise, but it’s not the first time I’ve seen a dead mole in this exact spot.

It’s the first time I’ve seen a red admiral this year.

Great willowherb was seen on the side of some the paths.

Closer to home, I went on an evening safari around the local area. I’ve got some exciting news to tell you soon about this area.

Freshly cut hay means wildlife like this hare is easier to spot despite him trying to stay hidden by laying his ears down flat.

On the edges of the seldom used paths, there’s plenty of low lying biting stonecrop.

Newly hatched burnet moths feed on the scabious (field scabious I think)

I managed to sneak up to about 10 yards to take this shot of two young little owls.

And so ended a great couple of days in the woods and the fields of Essex.

I hope you have a good week ahead.

We haven’t had a good drop of rain for a while now. The rest of the UK has had a few downpours but we remain pretty dry here in East Anglia.

This led to a few nice sunsets last week as the dust mixed with the rays of the setting sun. I borrowed this 18mm lens. I think I’ll have to invest in one.

I went to Poor Park woods on Sunday. There was a surprising amount of activity and this was mid-morning. I saw three lots of fallow and a fox. The sighting caught me unawares and I didn’t even get a chance to capture them on film apart from this poor photo.

In the afternoon I went foraging for cherries off our local cheery trees, which were delicious.

There is an abundance of grasshoppers around at the moment making great snacks for the birds. A number of butterflies can be seen feeding on thistles, ragwort, and rosebay willowherb (below).

I’ve been taking Billy the Bichon out in the evenings as it’s cooler. It really is a spectacular time of the day once the oppressive heat has dissipated a little.

I’ll leave you with another sunset picture.

Thanks for the visit.