Spring is Sprunging

Well…something like that! It has been a glorious weekend here in East Anglia. Cold nights have quickly given way to warm and sunny days. And to top it all, today was the spring equinox. Equal day and night.

The hum of bees making excursions out of their hives was drowned out by the hum of the lawn-mowers coughing into life for the first time since last summer.

Ground ivy, speedwell, sweet violet are all flowering, and lords and ladies (arum lilly) celandine and dog’s mercury are all pushing through the woodland floor. There’s a green haze of fresh buds on the trees.

The deer have been pretty quiet, although I’ve noticed large doe herds coming out to enjoy the warmth on the outskirts of the woods, while the bucks keep in the woods whilst they shed their antlers.

 

Badgers are busy and my trailcam has picked up quite a lot of activity at our local badger sett. The cubs are most probably either born or just being born underground, but they won’t emerge for 6 weeks or so yet.

Oh yes… Billy the dog got a hair cut! Despite his insistence on keeping his hair long, he was getting extremely hot going for walks;  so.. the Bischon Frise is no longer ‘Frise’ but ‘Chauve’.

Thanks for the visit.

Spring is Sprunging

Well…something like that! It has been a glorious weekend here in East Anglia. Cold nights have quickly given way to warm and sunny days. And to top it all, today was the spring equinox. Equal day and night.

The hum of bees making excursions out of their hives was drowned out by the hum of the lawn-mowers coughing into life for the first time since last summer.

Ground ivy, speedwell, sweet violet are all flowering, and lords and ladies (arum lilly) celandine and dog’s mercury are all pushing through the woodland floor. There’s a green haze of fresh buds on the trees.

The deer have been pretty quiet, although I’ve noticed large doe herds coming out to enjoy the warmth on the outskirts of the woods, while the bucks keep in the woods whilst they shed their antlers.

 

Badgers are busy and my trailcam has picked up quite a lot of activity at our local badger sett. The cubs are most probably either born or just being born underground, but they won’t emerge for 6 weeks or so yet.

Oh yes… Billy the dog got a hair cut! Despite his insistence on keeping his hair long, he was getting extremely hot going for walks;  so.. the Bischon Frise is no longer ‘Frise’ but ‘Chauve’.

Thanks for the visit.

Web Stuff

I’ve been doing quite a lot of work on both the websites this week trying to tweak the Woodlife Network and the Woodlife  site.

I’ve now completely finished the Woodlife Network version 3 and despite a couple of little nags it’s working well.

On this site I’ve added a Pick and Mix page for people to design their own courses. You can see what I mean here. (Genuine enquiries only please!!)

I’ve also added an enquiry form on the Contacts page and a quick survey in the Woodlife Trails menu. Feel free to contribute to the survey. I’m interested to know what people want from courses.

The other tweaks are new layouts for the course list and course dates pages. I’ve also re-introduced my scenic sounds page, which used to be part of the Woodlife Studios. I discontinued this a couple of years ago. I thought it might be fun and I’m now calling it a Chill Zone.

I’ve revamped the gallery under Pablo’s Area on the top menu.

If you have any ideas for the development of the site and any comments, I’d be glad to hear of them.

Thanks for the visit.

Web Stuff

I’ve been doing quite a lot of work on both the websites this week trying to tweak the Woodlife Network and the Woodlife  site.

I’ve now completely finished the Woodlife Network version 3 and despite a couple of little nags it’s working well.

On this site I’ve added a Pick and Mix page for people to design their own courses. You can see what I mean here. (Genuine enquiries only please!!)

I’ve also added an enquiry form on the Contacts page and a quick survey in the Woodlife Trails menu. Feel free to contribute to the survey. I’m interested to know what people want from courses.

The other tweaks are new layouts for the course list and course dates pages. I’ve also re-introduced my scenic sounds page, which used to be part of the Woodlife Studios. I discontinued this a couple of years ago. I thought it might be fun and I’m now calling it a Chill Zone.

I’ve revamped the gallery under Pablo’s Area on the top menu.

If you have any ideas for the development of the site and any comments, I’d be glad to hear of them.

Thanks for the visit.

Bags of Badgers

It was nice to get back into Poor Park woods this weekend. There was a brisk easterly which turned northerly but this subsided as the day went on. The temperature started out about 4C and rose to about 7C.

I had a couple of projects to do. But, as usual, I spent a good hour or so looking at the favourite track traps and areas of interest. The first ting that struck me was the fine carpet of green that was slowly spreading along the woodland floor. A couple of weeks ago, there was only the odd dog’s mercury sprouting up, but it was now literally covering the wood.

The damp, muddy pathways were awash with tracks, mainly fallow and muntjac, but there was also a few fox tracks. The small muntjac track above (right) is one of the smallest I’ve seen and can only be a new-born. Unlike other deer species in the UK, muntjac breed all the year round and as soon as the fawn is 6-months old, the doe will attempt to get pregnant again.

I was surprised at the number of badger tracks as well. Often there’s a few tracks but everywhere I looked there seemed to be a track.

I came to a conclusion that the local lay-up sett must be active and I was proved right by some good signs of activity at the sett, although I still think it’s just a lay-up sett and not a clan sett.

It was an ideal opportunity to try out my first project; a plaster-cast. I haven’t done one of these for a number of years and my first try was a bit of a disaster as I made the mixture far too runny. Shame – because that one was a good badger track. Was!

My next attempt was better and I got a reasonably good fallow track. Now I know the correct mix ratio, I’ll try a few more next week.

While the plaster was setting, I had a little snack. Bacon, egg and mushrooms in an edible plate.

My final project was to carve a spoon using just the new prototype Woodlife “Tracker” Knife. I’m more used to using a chopping method of creating a spoon with my leuku and finishing off with the puuku; so it was a bit of a challenge using a big heavy knife like the “Tracker” to do fine carving.

It did a great job though and once I’d sorted out the carving technique, it made short work of the birch. I found the knife was a little heavy for this kind of work, but I would much rather have a big heavy knife for other practical tasks.

Thanks for the visit.

Bags of Badgers

It was nice to get back into Poor Park woods this weekend. There was a brisk easterly which turned northerly but this subsided as the day went on. The temperature started out about 4C and rose to about 7C.

I had a couple of projects to do. But, as usual, I spent a good hour or so looking at the favourite track traps and areas of interest. The first ting that struck me was the fine carpet of green that was slowly spreading along the woodland floor. A couple of weeks ago, there was only the odd dog’s mercury sprouting up, but it was now literally covering the wood.

The damp, muddy pathways were awash with tracks, mainly fallow and muntjac, but there was also a few fox tracks. The small muntjac track above (right) is one of the smallest I’ve seen and can only be a new-born. Unlike other deer species in the UK, muntjac breed all the year round and as soon as the fawn is 6-months old, the doe will attempt to get pregnant again.

I was surprised at the number of badger tracks as well. Often there’s a few tracks but everywhere I looked there seemed to be a track.

I came to a conclusion that the local lay-up sett must be active and I was proved right by some good signs of activity at the sett, although I still think it’s just a lay-up sett and not a clan sett.

It was an ideal opportunity to try out my first project; a plaster-cast. I haven’t done one of these for a number of years and my first try was a bit of a disaster as I made the mixture far too runny. Shame – because that one was a good badger track. Was!

My next attempt was better and I got a reasonably good fallow track. Now I know the correct mix ratio, I’ll try a few more next week.

While the plaster was setting, I had a little snack. Bacon, egg and mushrooms in an edible plate.

My final project was to carve a spoon using just the new prototype Woodlife “Tracker” Knife. I’m more used to using a chopping method of creating a spoon with my leuku and finishing off with the puuku; so it was a bit of a challenge using a big heavy knife like the “Tracker” to do fine carving.

It did a great job though and once I’d sorted out the carving technique, it made short work of the birch. I found the knife was a little heavy for this kind of work, but I would much rather have a big heavy knife for other practical tasks.

Thanks for the visit.

Woodlife Trails–As Seen on TV

After a bit of “Is it on or is it off” last week, JP and I eventually found ourselves travelling towards an unlikely location (for us) to meet up with a TV production company who had been commissioned by Channel Four to make a programme.

Perhaps Hampstead isn’t too unlikely considering the programme (or at least a third of it) is going to be about an urban fox “problem”. We were to survey the area, and then look at three gardens for signs of fox.

The crew followed us around all afternoon as we found and described fox hairs, scat, tracks and our suppositions as to why the foxes were entering into each garden.

As Hampstead Heath wasn’t too far away, it was natural to assume they were coming in from there, but there was certainly a resident community of a number of fox families who had made their home in the locality. Just how many was very difficult to speculate upon without doing a larger survey. Above shows signs of a fox climbing out of a garden.

At the request of the crew, we set hired camera traps in each garden for later retrieval, and hopefully capture some footage of fox activity.

As we surveyed one garden, we tracked the fox to the bottom of the garden and through a narrow gap. As JP peeked though the gap into next door’s garden, he spooked the fox laying up under a conifer, which ran off into what we had identified as a long, narrow transit corridor between two facing back gardens. Unfortunately the camera crew were a little slow to catch the live action.

We were very impressed that the producer had switched from an earlier stance of supporting the eradication of the fox through trapping and shooting, to our reasoning that this would only allow another fox to occupy the displaced fox’s vacant territory.

Later in the evening, we had to describe our findings to the occupiers of the property and suggest ways  to reduce their presence. After describing this to one couple, they changed their own quite hard-line opinion about foxes and will be willing to try out our suggestions. 

To another lady I described exactly how and why I thought a certain route was being used and the reasoning for the fox coming into her garden. She confirmed exactly what I had said, describing the fox routinely jumping onto a low wall surrounding a water feature for a drink. Her observations also confirmed what I thought was a mouse that appeared in one corner of the garden to nibble on some windfall fruit.

After a tiring but satisfying day, we made our way back to Essex. I’m not sure when the programme will be aired; but I’ll be sure to let everyone know. Err…I hope they caught our best side!