Are you what I think you are?

With the promise of it being the best 24 hours of the Bank Hoilday, on Friday afternoon, I loaded up the 35 litre bag with two litres of water, the Snugpak bivi bag, the summer sleeping bag and some food and headed for Poor Park, the new woods.

Between 3pm and 6pm I continued my exploration of the quiet, undisturbed 14 acre woodland looking in just about every nook and cranny, and trying to determine the tracks that were mainly fallow and muntjac deer. I saw a large herd of fallow, but only at a distance when entering a large open area at the edge of the wood.

Instead of making camp and then exploring, I decided to explore and then camp when I got tired. I forgot that with the bivi bag, I had to find a suitable flat spot. I eventually found one - exactly where I thought I might camp in the first place!

I brought along the gas burner and continued to be impressed by it's ease of use. There's no substitute for an open fire though, and as the sun went down I huddled close to the small fire to take the chill off. There's no birch in these woods, so I relied on a piece of Maya wood I'd brought with me. I lit some scrapings and shavings with the firesteel and fed the fire with abundant dry dead wood which littered the area. The woods themselves were still and quiet and as the fire dwindled, so did I and turned in just after 11pm.

It was an uncomfortable night. I just can't get used to ground dwelling. I sleep on my side and after a while my hips begin to ache and I wake up.

At six in the morning, it started. The barking. That annoying 6am barking! The barking that makes even the most avid naturalist shout "Shut up - I don't if it is the money shot! Just Shut up."

At first I thought it was a muntjac but when I slowly (I'd constrained myself by then) poked my head out from the hood of the bivi bag, I saw 5 fallow deer about 25 yards away. They were looking at me but being a strange hooped bivi bag shape, they couldn't make out exactly what I was. I was probably close to their normal morning browsing trail. I noticed I nice dark, almost black, melanistic one amongst them.


There was a mature doe to my right. She was stamping and barking at regular intervals. They say it's an alarm call. I'm sure it is an alarm call but I also get the impression it's to try and spook the object into movement so they can tell for certain what it is and where it is.

I also noticed she was licking her nose. No doubt this was to enhance the smell senses again to determine what was out there.

The stand off lasted a good 15 minutes and I managed to get some good footage before they wandered off. All the time I could almost read her mind. "Are you what I think you are?"

After breakfast of bacon, sausages and egg, I made a last check on the main tracks to see what had happended during the night (not a lot it seemed) and made my way back to the car.

Thanks for the visit.

Pablo