Meeting a pal, a hot day but cooler in the woods

Small White butterfly

Yesterday the temperature was predicted to hit the high 20s Celsius. I left home around 7am and a low mist hung across the landscape. There were some fantastic photography opportunities but my mission was to get to the woods early. One of my neighbours had been camping overnight but needed to get away by mid morning and I wanted to meet him and have a catch-up before he left. He is a keen bushcrafter and nature lover and we always have plenty to talk about. One of the joys of having friends who share your interests, is being able to chat, swap ideas and stories without the risk of boring someone to death! His camp is minimal in true bushcraft fashion and I admired the simplicity of it compared to my more elaborate set-ups. A hammock slung between two trees and one rucksack for his gear. A cooking tripod made from hazel rods stood over a small smouldering fire. It felt good and I was grateful to be invited into someone else’s woodland sanctum. I wished I was staying over and we made a loose plan to possibly do an Autumn overnighter together.

Speckled Wood butterfly basking on a fern

It was to be another day where nothing much was planned, just to enjoy being in the woods and it’s cooling atmosphere on such a hot day. I eagerly checked the trailcam but disappointed again to find that it mainly contained shots of wood pigeons and grey squirrels drinking from the bucket. The night time shots of the Tawny Owl had been cut short to two seconds and I think that was due to low battery power. After lots of walkabout and photography I decided I should do a couple of jobs. I still have lots of logs lying around, waiting to be split and stacked for firewood, so I set about splitting a pile. Most were small and split easily so it didn’t overheat me. I sorted some from an older stack to take home for firewood.

I packed up a little early with some reluctance but decided to take one more short walk around, just to absorb the beauty of the woods. I looked up through a small opening in the tall tree canopy which formed a perfect woodland picture frame. I was rewarded with a beautiful blue sky, dotted with little fluffy clouds and a magnificent buzzard way up high, wheeling around and simply enjoying the thermals. A perfect ending. I leave you with a few more photos.

Spider web on holly

Small fungi

“Male” fern in sunlight

Gifts from nature and a few useful jobs done

Yesterday’s plan was to meet some friends at the woods but a mix-up meant they had to cancel. I felt disappointed, I like showing people around the woods and I hadn’t made many plans as to how I was going to fill my time. I knew that once I got there, I would find plenty to keep me busy though. It was a day of doing a few small jobs and at the same time, having the opportunity to take my time, have a good look around and just savour the woods. I have mentioned before how special it feels when entering the woods. There is wildlife all around us to see in our towns and countryside but no habitat on dry land is as rich a place than a woodland. It’s like a natural zoo and botanical garden rolled into one but nothing is caged or manicured. Sometimes when you enter, you feel like you are about to watch a play but you are also one of the actors and there is no script. It’s a very subtle play and most folks would be bored after half an hour. But keep your eyes and ears switched on and you will be rewarded with small gifts from nature. Like this Meadow Brown butterfly on a bramble flower.

I was excited as I took the trail camera down to upload it’s 105 shots, hoping for some good video of the Tawny Owl that has been visiting the water bucket. Then disappointment as I discovered it was configured wrongly and had only taken still shots, none of them worth showing here as the quality is poor. The main visitors are Grey Squirrels and Wood Pigeons but there was a couple of the Tawny taking a bath.

The gifts – later as I worked, I was rewarded with sightings of a tiny shrew as it darted from one log pile to another, a tiny froglet in my camp area and the best of the day – a Green Woodpecker. I know there are some around and thought I saw one scrapping with another bird last year but never seen one for definite. I was alerted by a strange, very loud and unusual bird call, high above in the trees. I soon spotted it and tried to get a photo but it flew off before I could. I put some food out for the birds and sat for a while on my bench. The woods had been almost devoid of any bird sounds but within seconds a Robin, Nuthatch and various members of the Titmouse family descended. Later in the day I caught this unusual slimey “bird” gorging itself on the crumbled fat ball I had left on a log. Various butterflies flitted around feeding off the brambles in the sun.

I mentioned earlier that I was due to meet some friends there. They had given me a bat box earlier in the year and I hadn’t got around to fixing it up. So now was a good time and that was job number one. They need warmth so a South East facing position is good. I found what seems like an ideal spot, overlooking the small clearing I made in the Sycamore plantation where it gets plenty of sun and is the sort of open aspect they like, to hunt for flying insects. I may never know if any inhabit the box as they are protected by law and once the box is up, you are not allowed to take it down or open it up unless you are licensed to.

Having seen the Tawny trying to bathe in the water bucket, I figured to make it easier by installing a dish under the barrel overflow. I also want the bucket to refill too so the dish was strategically placed to catch the water first, then when that’s full, to overflow into the bucket. I think it’s going to work unless some pesky squirrel displaces it.

Next job was to dismantle the fireplace in front of the shelter. In September I am going on a pole lathe building course and hope to use the area for more woodworking. When we built the shavehorse earlier in the year, the fire was in the way and as it rarely gets used, makes sense to dispose of it. I left the concrete hearth in place so I can always light a small fire on top of it if needed.

Before

After

Last job was to mark up some trees for felling/thinning. The whole wider woods has a “blanket” TPO on it – Tree Preservation Order which means you need a license or planning permission to cut any live trees down. My current license expires in December so I have applied for a new five year one. The trees intended for felling need to be marked up in some way. Most have already been done but it seemed a good time to go around once more and see if any others needed marking. It also gave me the chance to have a really good look around and spot some more gifts from nature. I’ll end here with a few more photos .

Some type of small bracket fungus growing on dead log

Elderberries ripening

Berries from Arum Maculatum. Has anything got more common names than this plant? Snakeshead, adder’s root, arum, wild arum, arum lily, lords-and-ladies, devils and angels, cows and bulls, cuckoo-pint, soldiers diddies, priest’s pintle, Adam and Eve, bobbins, naked girls, naked boys, starch-root, wake robin, friar’s cowl, sonsie-give-us-your-hand, jack in the pulpit and cheese and toast.

 

Who’s taking a bath in my woods?

Speckled Wood butterfly basking on wild raspberry leaf.

Last Saturday it was still very warm but we had had some very heavy rainfall and thunder storms around the region. I was glad the woodlands had been given a good watering after such a dry year. I just had three aims for the day – to clear some of my paths which had become badly overgrown with bramble and nettles. To try out an ex-military tarp and to see what my trail camera might reveal from it’s new position. I was stunned to find approx 250 video captures. It was going to take some time to trawl through them. I look at the black and white night-time shots first because they are likely to be the most interesting. Lots of the daytime shots were false triggers with nothing on. But the thrill was to see a Tawny Owl drinking and bathing in a bucket of water. I had purposely left it under the overflow pipe of the water barrel so that it would automatically top it up when it rained and the barrel was full. Have a look at the compilation video here but it’s best to view on a large screen rather than a smart phone (you won’t see much otherwise).

Strimming the internal paths was hard work but necessary for me to be able to get around unheeded. The growth of bramble and nettles in one area was phenominal. Whilst it is great for wildlife, it’s not so good for me. This is an area I did and where I had found a deer bed earlier in the year.

One more task was to try out an ex-military tarp I bought a while ago. They are relatively cheap to buy but getting harder to find unissued ones. It’s called an IPK which stands for Individual Protection Kit. They are just a sheet of very strong waterproof material supplied with cordage and aluminium ground pegs. They were mainly intended for emergency cover for soldiers out in the field. The idea was to dig a trench then cover it with the IPK and peg it down. They are supposedly strong enough to hold up a truck when done correctly. There are no hems or tie-down tabs or rings, so I modified it and added my own to make it into a more conventional tarp. I have been toying with the idea of using it temporarily to extend the cover at the front of my shelter when I want to do some woodworking and the weather is not so good. Of course I need some places to attach guy lines to so I wanted to experiment with using nearby trees and the shelter itself. The photo show the best arrangement I could find so far. Not particularly good and maybe the tarp needs to be a bigger one.