The other wood is very local is just a quick bike ride away, although I take the car to save time. This wood is on private land and I’m able to use this wood to practice bushcraft as there are very few visitors. The wood is quite small and split into two halves; West wood and East wood. The only occupants appear to be crows and rooks, who have built a substantial rookery in the canopies if West wood, and the occasional rabbit. This wood tends to be very damp while the East wood is far dryer. Both the woods are deciduous woodland and in the following entries, I’ll try to describe the flora and fauna in more detail.

The picture shows a rest stop in East wood where I’ve chosen to practice bushcraft. At the moment, I’ve just used the space between the two trees to sit, ponder, and write a couple of journal entries. I’ve also drawn a rough map of the area in the hard copy journal.

Today’s walk in East wood brought me into contact with what I think is tinder fungus. I cut a piece in half and set fire to it with a lighter. It smouldered very well, but did not catch.

I’ll confirm exactly what it is in the next post. I’ve never really bothered with identifying fungus before, but I understand that this fungus is good for fire making. Cut my thumb though using my newly purchased Frosts Clipper knife. I even looked around to see if anyone was watching! At the moment I feel like a true beginner and it will take me a bit before I’m comfortable doing this again.

My trip today ended about 3pm. It was a beautiful couple of hours in the woods and I enjoyed the peace and quiet. The sun was out and the temp was about 7 deg C. It was starting to turn colder by the time I left. I seemed alone in the wood. Apart from a few bird-calls from blackbirds, the woods were still.

P.S. Thanks to the people on BCUK I’ve identified the fungus as Cramp Balls or King Alfred’s Cakes (Daldinia concentrica) it’s most commonly found on Ash trees or Oak. I’ve now confirmed it by referring to http://www.rogersmushrooms.com/ It smolders very well when lit and I’ve been advised that small shavings with other tinder will fire up well.

I think the van will be more useful in summer, when the warmer weather would extend outings. In the meantime, the van is used for storing bushcraft kit strapped in the back in a box. The most notable item being the hexy burner, mess tins and packet soup. I now don’t have to make the decision to select this at home.

I walked through Airfield woods, this time starting at the the east end. As last time, there was very little movement although I thought I saw a fox briefly running away to the west. This was confirmed later when I came across fox spur, which was very fresh and still warm.

At one of my favourite rest points, I contemplated on other nature watchers comments about the strange winter we are having. Although there’s been a couple of harsh frosts, there have been some of mild days. Some have observed catkin and and other trees budding. I’ve noticed that leaves have fallen later this year, and I noticed that there are still some stubborn oak leaves high on the trees. The temperature today has just crept above freezing, but it is still a very bright and sunny day.

I had two other projects to do today, one was to choose between two bino’s. One was 8×21 the other was 10×25. I chose the 10×25′s because they were slightly better for observing birds at a distance, but they did seem harder to focus properly.

The second mission was to test out a hatchet. I have a very old rusty hatchet, and had read that this was an essential part of bushcraft if you were to build shelters and fires, as even the sturdiest bushcraft knife would not suffice for these tasks. I tried clearing a few branches around my rest point. Of course the hatchet was more effective and I could see the potential for a good sharp non-rusty version. This was something that I had not tried when I was bushcrafting 15 years ago. This will certainly be on my wish list for summer bushcrafting. A Granfors Bruuks Wildlife hatchet or small forest axe appears to be the best buy on the net. I cut myself a walking stick with the axe and the clipper knife and I didn’t even cut myself! Not a bad attempt. Even worthy of taking home. Wife said, “Nice stick. How many times cutting yourself did it take!”

My 3 hour excursion finished with a walk back to the west side of the wood, looking for any decent loose wood to chop! I fancy having a go at making something out of wood, but will only chose wood that’s fallen. I’m still not sure the best wood to use and will explore this at a later date. A philosophy of Mears’ bushcraft is to utilise anything preferably without killing or destroying it unless absolutely necessary. I sincerely agree with this and therefore I will only utilise fallen wood. I found the hatchet sat well tucked into my belt and wasn’t uncomfortable at all. Any larger size probably would be.

My final task today was to have a cuppa in the van on my fold down stool. I watched the rabbits and the crows (the only abundant wildlife today) in the relative comfort of the van!