Pablo’s Woodlife

Another wonderful bright spring day, although there’s still quite a cold north easterly wind. A couple of late frosts last week hasn’t dampened nature’s need to push the buds of spring through. The floor of the wood looks like a green mist has descended, while in patches the mist rises up to form isolated pockets of green fog where the low laying shrubs and young trees compete with their elders to produce the first bursts of opening shoots.

The first obvious buds (and tree identification is my worst subject) are the goat willow or “pussy willow” covering the skyline like yellow pollen in the air. The goat willow surrounds the woods like sentries on guard while the weeping willow can also be seen (bit not actually in the wood).

The outskirts of the wood show small areas of Sweet violet and scattered patches of Red dead nettle.

I also took the opportunity to try out a bushcraft experiment. I’d been reading about the properties of some trees and discovered that the birch was one of the best trees for the British Bushcrafter. I had to put this to the test by trying to use a firesteel for the first time to create fire. My ultimate aim is to create fire by friction, but like many things in bushcraft, I’ve discovered that you can very quickly get demoralised if you initially aim too high too quickly. I’ve tried a couple of times to get tinder alight by firesteel with absolutely no luck.

Finding the one silver birch on the outskirts of the wood (within my self imposed rules for resources) I carefully stripped a few small pieces of bark off the tree and put it in my pouch. I wanted to initially try this in a controlled environment, so off I went…home.

Once at home, using only the firesteel and and the birch tinder I created my first fire without use of matches, accelerant or a lighter. I was elated!! It works…I had created fire! This might seem a bit of an over the top reaction, but after so many failures prior to starting this journal, I just felt as though I had created something quite fundamental just using the most simplistic resources. I don’t know what I will be like when I create fire by friction! Thus I am calling this post “Fire – part one”. I am confident that I will be able to replicate this success in the woods as long as I have some birch bark. This will always be in my pouch from now on.

After a few weeks of rain, the sun has suddenly made what is probably one of the last of its strong appearances this summer. The temperature is back up in the high twenties centigrade and a good opportunity for some more bushcraft in the woods. I went light this week with only my rucksack containing the Swedish Army Trangia and some food. I didn’t need the Trangia after all as I decided to build a small fire to cook up the beans and sausages and brew of tea.

The fire lighting with fire steel and birch bark as tinder was a success and soon I had a good lunch on the go.

I used my small folding sit mat (a new purchase and pictured in the photo) for the first time. This is a good cheap addition to my kit. So often I’ve sat down on damp ground and regretted it. This sit mat is light and folds up quite small.

After lunch, I decided to make a few simple tools including a tri-pod stand for the rucksack, and another rough spoon. The tri-pod reminded me to practice my lashings as this attempt wasn’t too successful. It did the trick for this occasion though. I realised on the bushmoot that you don’t always need expensive paracord for everything and most of the instructors had balls of cheap nylon string or ordinary twine. Great for small jobs where strength isn’t a necessity.

I walked to the outskirts of the woods a watched the dragonflies again. I realised that, like the strong sun, there wouldn’t be many more occasions this season when I would be able to view them. I spotted a couple of the large Emperors (again, too swift for a photo) and a pair of Large Reds coupling and ovipositing on the wing. Apparently, this is the only species of dragonfly in the UK that do this, and I was pleased to get a picture. The warm sun brought out a few butterflies and I spotted a Red Admiral amongst the blackberries on the wood edge.

A great day for wildlife finished with a low swooping fly-past of firstly a Sparrowhawk and then a Greater Spotted Woodpecker, with a Kestrel hovering in the distance

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All seemed peaceful with the world as I laid out in the sun and soaked up the warmth of the late summer. I felt I had to go back into the wood and do something else, but it was just too nice and I drifted off to sleep listening to the sound of the insects.

A great day for a bit of bushcraft. The temperature was down to about 4 degrees C. A bit of frost but the sun was warming the woods nicely. I didn’t really have a project today. I just went out to enjoy the woods.

On the spur of the moment, I decided to build a fire to cook lunch. I always keep a bit of tinder in my shoulder bag and of course the firesteel is ever present. I made a couple of feather sticks (not very goods ones it has to be said) and chopped some kindling. The sparks came off the firesteel and it wasn’t too long before the silver birch bark slivers and dried grass caught. I prefer to start off a fire by the ‘fire bed’ method of layering the kindling parallel to the ground as opposed to the pyramid affair. I also make a small hollow in the ground underneath the fire for extra circulation. I must admit that fire building is not one of my best points, but I seem to be improving and getting quicker at starting a fire.

It was a good ‘lazy-mans’ lunch of beans, sausages, mushrooms and whatever-that-is-at-the- bottom. All from a tin. It did of course taste better being cooked on a open fire. The whole was washed down by a mug of tea. Even though I use my trusted crusader mug, I do like to actually drink out of my wooden kuska cup that is normally found hanging from my belt when not in use.

After lunch, I tried to work out how to put the Karrimor side pouches onto the yoke. The pouches were sold with the Sabre pack, but it came without the yoke. I ordered a yoke last week for £11-50 and I was keen to see whether the conversion of the side pouches into a day sack would work. The yoke actually looked like a spider because it has that many straps, but I finally worked out how to fix it to the pouches (or was it the other way round?) Once I got the hang of it, it only took 5 minutes from taking it off the main pack to making it into a day sack. Wearing it is quite comfortable but there isn’t any padding on the straps. Of course the two pouches total 30 litres so there’s stacks of space for day kit. I’m not sure if I prefer this over a standard day sack. I’ll have to put it through its paces at a later date.

I hadn’t realised that it was so late. I had let the fire go out and it was getting quite cold again. The sun was going down quickly. I would have loved to restart the fire again and stay out even later, but I hadn’t brought a sleep system with me. With the remnants of a cold still lingering, I also didn’t want to tempt fate.

In the last 2 weeks we’ve experienced torrential rain, hot sun, and a cold frost. I’ve been out in it all and I’ve enjoyed every minute. Perhaps I’m not as much as a fine weather bushcrafter as I first thought.

Continuation from Saturdays entry

… I had tracked the deer and spotted 5 of them on the outskirts of the wood. I originally identified them as Fallow but sitting under the poncho in the rain, I wasn’t so sure. The distance between us was about 50 meters, it was raining hard and even though one of them stood staring at me for a good two minutes, I was not convinced she was a Fallow deer. More likely a Roe. The easiest way of identifying between the two is to have a look at their rumps. Unfortunately, the deer I was looking at was side on. The Fallow has a striped effect rump (white and black rump with a black tail), while the Roe has a white rump (as shown in photo courtesy of museums.ncl.ac.uk). The Roe is smaller and is in fact the smallest of Britain’s native deer. They have become scarce in some areas of Britain. It seems nobody knows exactly why, but I believe they are becoming more widespread again. Certainly in this area of the country, they are quite abundant (except of course in these particular woods).

The more I mused, the colder I got. I had rearranged the poncho to stop the rain pouring through the hood (yes… a good idea to tie up the hood!) and I had angled the poncho to let the rain run off to my right. I had already had a good drenching because I had forgotten to do these simple tasks. It was not particularly cold, but I realised that a combination of damp clothes (what I was wearing had done a pretty good job so far), the lack of activity and the wind-chill was all having an effect of making me cold through to the core (or seemed that way). It was time to act and that didn’t mean walking to the van which was about a minutes walk away.

I gathered a few damp pieces of wood and tried to make a couple of feather sticks. I used my new Companion II knife for the first time and was pleased to say that it performed well. I, however didn’t and the feather sticks were not a great success. I pulled out the tinder from my shoulder bag and after making a small platform of wood and shavings, I lit the tinder with the fire steel. This wasn’t very successful either, and it was a good 5 minutes before the tinder caught. By this time, the shavings and feather sticks were damp again and it was extremely difficult to keep the fire going. The wind had also veered without me realising it at the time and was making matters worse by blowing strongly on the exposed part of the fire. On reflection, I should have a) kept more out of the wind by selecting a more sheltered spot and b) kept the tinder and kindling in a drier state.

All was not lost and at least I did get a small fire going. The fuel was very damp though and it soon petered out. It was certainly not enough to get warm and I considered that if I would have had to stay out longer, I would have needed to prepare the wood much better. Even though I was pleased with the knife, I certainly missed the axe for doing these wood chopping duties.

As it was, I had had enough. I had been out for 4 hours and I was getting colder and colder and wetter and wetter. My gloves were soaking and it was all I could do to take down the poncho and pull on my day sack. As with the axe, I certainly missed the tarp. Even the remnants of the flask of tea weren’t enough to warm me up. I retreated to the van and gratefully drove the short journey home.

An hour later, with feet still thawing even after a hot shower, I thought about the highs and lows of the day. I was delighted I had found the deer, but I wasn’t too pleased about the way I went about trying to ‘survive’. I had made a couple of fundamental mistakes setting up the poncho, the location of my site (nearly facing the wind and on top of a rise), and the lack of preparation for the fuel for the fire. I had nevertheless, actually got a fire alight even for a short time. I probably wouldn’t have been able to do that this time last year. I hadn’t panicked when things went wrong nor become frustrated and given up. Some of these things I might have done in the past. Still lots to learn though.

After a week a very high winds, today was a bit calmer and in fact very sunny here in North Essex, but a little colder. Two projects today. One was to start testing my new camera. After a long time of putting up with one of first digital cameras to come out, I decided to upgrade. After a lot of research I decided to go for this Nikon Coolpix S4 camera. It has all the facilities of a reasonable standard SLR including good optical zoom (x10) and a macro facility whilst still being compact enough to put in a jacket pocket. A few other add-ons i.e. voice recording and movie capability give it the icing on the cake. The unique swivel lens is handy for framing awkward shots. The point and shoot mode is great for… er… pointing and shooting while there are several specialist modes like low light, landscape, high speed shutter, portrait etc etc. I must admit I wasn’t too creative today but just snapped away looking at the different settings. Yet another category appears on this blog! Photography.

My other mission was to try out fire-lighting in the very different conditions to last week. I wanted to see exactly just how much last weeks wet conditions affected normal fire-lighting. I used exactly the same wood for tinder and kindling as I did last week.

For a start it seemed to be easier just preparing the material in today’s conditions. I started with scraping birch bark and preparing some dry-ish wood into small feather sticks. After putting the kindling into a tent shape, I lit the tinder with the fire-steel and knife. Would you believe it, it caught on the second strike and I was able to feed it straight under the kindling where, again it caught well. Soon the fire, albeit a small one, was fully alight. All I had to do was add more moderately dry pieces of wood. What a difference a day or two of no rain makes. I was very surprised how quickly the wood had dried out. Well it was enough to make fire-lighting so much easier at any rate. Now all I have to do is keep practicing in the wet to become more adept at fire-lighting in any conditions.

I was still on the look out for the wood’s new residents; the deer. But I didn’t see them on this short excursion. I did however come across a bit of a gruesome discovery. I’ll post about this mid-week.

Thanks for the visit.

I got a few things in the post. 4 x karabiners; 500 ml Trangia fuel bottle; Maya sticks; fire-bowl; emergency phone charger; Aqua pack waterproof bag (not shown in pic); waterproof compression sack for the Nanok sleeping bag (not shown in pic).

I will now justify the purchases. Ahem…

The karabiners will be used to put on the DDHammock and the BCUK hammock. These will act as a drip rings as well as a better method of securing the hammock to the tapes.

The 500ml fuel bottle will serve fuel for up to 5 days cooking. The 1 litre bottle was too big.

I’ve always wanted to see how efficient (or not) the Maya sticks are.

Fire-bowl – Some areas (including the location of the Spring Bushmoot) don’t allow open fires on the ground. If this bit of kit is as good as the write-ups, then the bowl should suffice for small BBQ type cooking.

The Aqua pack waterproof bag is in preparation for my imminent canoeing excursions.

The waterproof sleeping bag compression sack will replace the Nanok stuff sack which quite frankly is c**p and already is tearing at the seams and is by no means waterproof.

The emergency phone charger will provide a back up for my power hungry PDA so I can blog from the woods for longer. Not enough justification? It can power the PDA phone in an emergency situation when the main battery is flat. Still not good enough? Ok…it looked like a good gadget to play with. Happy now?

I had a chance between the showery rain today to quickly try out the Maya sticks and fire-bowl. I know you’re meant to use them with coals, but I thought I’d have a go at making a wood fire. I was amazed how quickly the Maya stick caught and how ferociously it burnt. This stuff is the business for kindling. I had in fact initially made a feather stick out of it, but I needn’t had bothered. I had found some reasonably dry twigs (despite a weeks worth of rain) and the fire quickly became hot enough to cook on. I liked the idea of the sides of the bowl folding up. I found this handy and used it more as a wind shield than anything else. I’ll do a full review at a later date, but my first impressions are that it could be quite useful as an open fire unit, as long as you’re prepared to chop down your fuel small enough to fit in the unit. It folds down reasonably small enough to fit in the back pack, but I was surprised to find that the legs didn’t retract or weren’t able to be removed. That would have saved even more space in the sack.

Pop back mid week and I’ll tell you about some new woods I explored this weekend and some rather strange squirrel behaviour.

Pablo.

1130pm. Just heard fascinating talk on Kalahari bushmen. Now under tarp. Expected rain is here. This morning woodland management walk for a couple of hours. Pablo also made fire by bow drill. Fantastic, thanks to Jason. Made own bowdrill with flint for block. Chopped more wood than ever in my life! Now nearly time for hammock …after medicinal brandy. Cheers, Pablo.

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.

I went to Foxes wood with the specific intention of finding out the name of the landowner to ask permission to use the wood. This was a good time as the harvest has been collected and the fields are being re-ploughed. I pulled up in front of the woods, and saw a tractor in the field opposite the woods. I walked into the field and waved. A stunted conversation followed (the driver was Portuguese) but I managed to find out the name of the land owner.

After a short drive I found myself in front of a manor house. I knocked on the open door. There was no-one about. The grounds were magnificent. Think of a period drama on TV with long drive, small lake, sculptured garden and you will have the archetypal English country house. “Anyone at home,” I called into the empty house, admiring the small grand piano in the hallway (the hallway no less!) No reply.

I walked round the back of the house. “Hello! Anyone at home.” An elderly gent came into view, stooping slightly but well dressed (standard mustard coloured waistcoat) and carrying a splendid cultured accent. “Hello there,” he said, with a beaming smile. I introduced myself. The conversation went roughly like this:

P: I understand you own Foxes wood.

Mr J: Yes, actually I do.
P: I was wondering if I you would permit me to have a look around. I’m interested in wildlife (…shall I mention Bushcraft? Would he understand?) … and things like that. (What an idiot! What do you mean, ‘and things like that!’)
Mr J: Oh really.
P: Yes. Tracking. I like tracking. Animals. Mammals.
Mr J: What do you do when you’ve tracked ‘em?
P: I just like to get close. In fact, I like to get as close as possible to nature in general. That’s what I do. (Embarrassed.)
Mr J: Splendid!! We like all that. That’s no problem, only it’s the pheasants. They need the quiet. Come back in February. Yes. We like all that. Splendid!!
… and off he went.

Well. That was a result. I suppose. I was on a roll. I decided to capitalise on the success and try my hand at Lowt’s wood. I walked through the wood keeping to the public track at the foot of the hill. I’ve always loved this wood, even though I don’t venture in there too often. There’s badger setts, deer tracks, open woodland, bluebells in the spring and a nice mix between ancient and new woodland. On the way out, I noticed a small dumper spreading chalk. I just knew this guy was a landowner. The standard yellow Labrador MK 1 gave it away. The conversation went like this:

P: Hello. Do you know who owns these woods?
Mr T: I do.
P: They’re wonderful woods.
(No reply)
P: I wondered if I could ask your permission to take a walk off the track and into the wood.
Mr T: If I gave you permission, I’d have to give everyone else permission. That’s the problem. Everyone seems to think they have the right to go where they want. It just won’t do you know.
P: Well, that’s the reason I’m asking your permission. I wouldn’t just walk onto someone else’s property. I agree that some people don’t respect the countryside, but I assure you, I do.
Mr T: … they think they can roam where they want …
P: That’s why I’m… I like to track animals, (pointing at my tracking stick).
Mr T: You don’t need equipment to follow the deer in there.
P: (Equipment? I’m getting nowhere here.) I can keep an eye on things and let you know if there’s something amiss.
Mr T: I’m at the top of the hill. The white cottage.
P: So that’s okay then?
Mr T: Now and again.
P: Many thanks, Sir. That’s a great looking dog you have there.
MrT: It’s a bastard.

He actually turned out to be an alright bloke. We chatted about the pH value of the ground and I nodded in all the right places before taking my leave and wishing him good-day. A couple of bottles of whisky won’t go amiss in both respects. A small price to pay methinks.

Pablo.

7 degrees C day 1 degree C night Rain SW – NW 18 mph

The lads had left the firelighting task to me and just before sunset, I used some birch bark and the firesteel to light the fire. This wasn’t all that easy with the wind swirling around even in the relatively sheltered spot between two hillocks where we had set up. It’s always a little unnerving when you have a bit of an audience as well. Nevertheless, it took no time to catch and I was pleased I spent some extra time gathering some drier kindling.

Stewart duly skinned the rabbit and I chopped up the vegetables forraged from the garage. The shoulder of lamb was buried and the fire was built up on top of it. The stew pot was hung over the flames on the tripod hanger. Four hours later, it was all ready to go and we eagerly tucked in.

My colleague Paul tried out his new Highlander bivi tent and reported that it was really snug and worked well. My DD hammock also worked well as I thought it might. The mosquito net actually kept a lot of the draft off my body.