There’s just something deeply satisfying about lighting a fire in the woods and sticking the kettle on, then sitting back with a brew, watching the flames and admiring your surroundings. For awhile it seems to say “Everything’s alright in your world”. As Van Morrison said in his song Coney Island, “Wouldn’t it be great if it was like this all the time”
Yesterday was a mixed bunch of activities at the woods. I planned to stay late, until it was dark, to try out a night vision camera device that a mate had lent me. More of that later. I recently acquired and old fashioned scythe and I wanted to try it out on some brambles. I have a heavy-duty, petrol-engined brushcutter which does the job well but it’s heavy, smelly and noisy. For some time I have toyed with the idea of a scythe, maybe not so much for the dense bramble but more for keeping the new softer growth down. I’ve never used one before, so my technique wasn’t great but it did seem to work quite well, even on some of the tough stuff. It needs a bit of a clean up and sharpen but I think it’s going to prove useful. Might come in handy at Halloween and New Year too!
I took a whole mackerel to cook for lunch. People who know me also know that cooking is not one of my natural skill but it turned out perfect. I had planned to do it for my evening meal but figured that cooking and eating it in the dark was just a bit too much of a challenge. Picking the small bones out is definitely something to do during daylight. I simply marinated it with some sweet chilli sauce, wrapped it in foil and cooked slowly over embers, turning it half way through. It took about half an hour which seems quite long for fish but I raised it fairly high over the fire so as not to burn – always a danger when cooking on fire. It went lovely with some salad. Not the prettiest of presentations but who cares?
A job I have been meaning to do is to cut and burn the ash saplings that have died from chalara – ash dieback disease. There is no obligation to but there are numerous small, naturally regenerated saplings and although 90% or more have the disease, some are resisting it so far. So by removing as many as I can, it will make it easier to see any new ones that have succumbed to the disease against those that are resisting. it will be a long project. I one small area I filled three barrow loads.
Now to the stalking element in the title. As mentioned, I have been lent a device that uses infra red to illuminate the dark and allow you to view it and take photos or videos. I wanted to try it in the woods with the off chance that I might spot some wildlife – deer, fox, owls etc. Although it was very effective at showing the area in the dark, it wasn’t easy to use in this situation. The device has an illuminated screen so for me, I needed to wear my reading glasses. Looking for wildlife in a large forest is like a needle in a haystack. Also very difficult to navigate as you can imagine. A good torch is necessary to see your way and if you are shortsighted – distance glasses. So it was a case of walk a hundred metres, swap spectacles, torch off, device on then scan around through the dense trees for something animals shaped. Nothing. Then device off, swap spectacles again, torch on and walk some more. Repeat previous steps. Conclusion is that if you were in a more open area where you knew there would be wildlife and you could stay in one spot, then it would be fantastic but it this case it just didn’t work well. Interesting to try it though.
As I sat by the dying embers ready to pack up and head for home I heard two tawny owls not far away. One hooted then other other replied with a gut wrenching screech. The screech conversation lasted a short while and I could tell one of them was flying by my woods. Was this the opportunity I wanted with night vision camera? Well if I knew where they were in amongst the thousands of trees and get there before they left, then yes but sadly it wasn’t the case.
Diary of a man and his woodland 