Woodland Tracker

At Woodlife Trails we rarely stay still. I’ve been dreaming up the Woodland Tracker course for some time, trying to find tracking techniques that would work better for the difficult environment and substrates of the British woodland than those techniques designed for warm climates.

This weekend the dream was realised as ten brave souls came out to trial the course. The result was an unmitigated success, even though I knew there’s a bit more work to be done.

The continuing mild weather made things quite comfortable and tracking on the main pathways of Hatfield forest was easy, which was great to test out a few theories. Unravelling individual prints contaminated by human traffic, however, wasn’t so easy. As we tracked deeper and deeper into the forest, things also got even more difficult; but the feedback was that the techniques worked well.

Following tracks and trail leading to the deeper parts of the forest also produced some stunning close encounters for everyone including foxes and the ever present fallow deer. The techniques from the Immersion course also helped and, for some, it was obvious that things were really coming together.

We also tried out some  new casting plaster from a company called “First Forensics”. We are still trialling this but first impressions are quite positive in relation to the quick-drying properties, although the plaster can’t be spread too thinly or it will crack. It’s also not very easy to separate from the woodland floor.

Thanks to everyone who came along and to Scrivy for being Marigold.

I’ll leave you with a small clip of the fallow.

Thanks for the visit.