Visits and Education

Woodlife Trails staff will visit your school or organisation. We will bring with us our popular table of exhibits which includes Natural History artefacts such as animal skulls, bones, skins, feeding signs, scat, and other interesting objects designed to educate not just youngsters but people of every age.

Our aim is to heighten awareness of the Natural World and help people get physically closer to inhabitants of the woods.

The exhibits are designed to be touched and felt by the audience thereby heightening the learning.

We also bring along our high-powered microscope to allow people to see objects in close detail.

Our owl pellet box is very popular. Youngster’s spend literally hours picking out the small mammal bones, separating them from the pellet.

As well as showing you our exhibits, we can take you for a woodland walk in your own or nearby woods to show you what you may be missing. We will help you identify plants, trees and tell you how they can be used. We will give you a few tips and tricks to help you observe the wildlife in your area by introducing you to the tracks and signs the animals leave behind.

Please look at Information for parents teachers v1.0 (pdf) which may answer any questions to what we can provide and an risks associated with it.

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Talks and Presentations

We are able to give talks and presentations on nearly any subject involving the outdoors such as bushcraft, survival skills, wild-camping, wildlife observation, the natural world in general or specific subjects such as animal and human tracking, wildlife observation or JP's specialist interest, arachnology.

This year's talks by Pablo which have already been booked are:

[table id=7 /]:

_____________________________________________________

Please contact us directly at info@woodlife.co.uk to discuss your requirements.

Visits and Education

Woodlife Trails staff will visit your school or organisation. We will bring with us our popular table of exhibits which includes Natural History artefacts such as animal skulls, bones, skins, feeding signs, scat, and other interesting objects designed to educate not just youngsters but people of every age.

Our aim is to heighten awareness of the Natural World and help people get physically closer to inhabitants of the woods.

The exhibits are designed to be touched and felt by the audience thereby heightening the learning.

We also bring along our high-powered microscope to allow people to see objects in close detail.

Our owl pellet box is very popular. Youngster’s spend literally hours picking out the small mammal bones, separating them from the pellet.

As well as showing you our exhibits, we can take you for a woodland walk in your own or nearby woods to show you what you may be missing. We will help you identify plants, trees and tell you how they can be used. We will give you a few tips and tricks to help you observe the wildlife in your area by introducing you to the tracks and signs the animals leave behind.

Please look at Information for parents teachers v1.0 (pdf) which may answer any questions to what we can provide and an risks associated with it.

________________________________________________

Talks and Presentations

We are able to give talks and presentations on nearly any subject involving the outdoors such as bushcraft, survival skills, wild-camping, wildlife observation, the natural world in general or specific subjects such as animal and human tracking, wildlife observation or JP's specialist interest, arachnology.

This year's talks by Pablo which have already been booked are:

[table id=7 /]:

_____________________________________________________

Please contact us directly at info@woodlife.co.uk to discuss your requirements.

Diploma Group Skills Weekend

This weekend we held our Woodlife Trails Diploma Group this weekend.

The Diploma group are a dedicated bunch of guys and girls who have signed up to our three-level programme of tuition conducted over a period of time to learn Bushcraft, Tracking and Natural History. It entitles them to attend any Woodlife Trails course and additional events like this one.

After the downpours of Friday morning, the weather started to clear and the rest of the weekend brightened up to give us good weather throughout the weekend.

 

Friday night provided a interesting culinary diversion to the norm as an injured duck previously dispatched by Hannah was prepared by her and, with Richard’s help, was cooked to flambé perfection.

Much of the Diploma is made up of practical assessments and the group were able to successfully show their competence and skill at various disciplines such as self-aid, knife safety, wild camp set up, and equipment as well as being shown new skills.

All the tracking section was ticked off where different types of tracks, scat and feeding sign were successfully found. The tracking culminated in a challenging track interpretation where fallow deer had been spooked by something (possibly a dog). The tracks showed a bomb-burst of deer in multiple directions from the middle of the path.

Damp conditions proved challenging for the fire-lighting assessments, but in the circumstances feather sticks proved the most reliable method.

On the way back from a Forest walk on Sunday afternoon, I managed to stalk up as close as I dared to a Fallow deer fawn. After observing the doe muzzling the fawn at a distance, we noticed her move away to forage leaving the fawn alone. I took the opportunity to get as close as I dared without frightening the fawn to take a couple of pictures with the iPhone.

I made no apologies for being slightly emotional when I returned. For me this is what it’s all about. Using Bushcraft as the vehicle, Tracking as the road with Wildlife as the destination.

It was a great weekend with skills being learnt and shared. Congratulations to everyone who managed to achieve great results.

\P/

Diploma Group Skills Weekend

This weekend we held our Woodlife Trails Diploma Group this weekend.

The Diploma group are a dedicated bunch of guys and girls who have signed up to our three-level programme of tuition conducted over a period of time to learn Bushcraft, Tracking and Natural History. It entitles them to attend any Woodlife Trails course and additional events like this one.

After the downpours of Friday morning, the weather started to clear and the rest of the weekend brightened up to give us good weather throughout the weekend.

 

Friday night provided a interesting culinary diversion to the norm as an injured duck previously dispatched by Hannah was prepared by her and, with Richard’s help, was cooked to flambé perfection.

Much of the Diploma is made up of practical assessments and the group were able to successfully show their competence and skill at various disciplines such as self-aid, knife safety, wild camp set up, and equipment as well as being shown new skills.

All the tracking section was ticked off where different types of tracks, scat and feeding sign were successfully found. The tracking culminated in a challenging track interpretation where fallow deer had been spooked by something (possibly a dog). The tracks showed a bomb-burst of deer in multiple directions from the middle of the path.

Damp conditions proved challenging for the fire-lighting assessments, but in the circumstances feather sticks proved the most reliable method.

On the way back from a Forest walk on Sunday afternoon, I managed to stalk up as close as I dared to a Fallow deer fawn. After observing the doe muzzling the fawn at a distance, we noticed her move away to forage leaving the fawn alone. I took the opportunity to get as close as I dared without frightening the fawn to take a couple of pictures with the iPhone.

I made no apologies for being slightly emotional when I returned. For me this is what it’s all about. Using Bushcraft as the vehicle, Tracking as the road with Wildlife as the destination.

It was a great weekend with skills being learnt and shared. Congratulations to everyone who managed to achieve great results.

\P/

Bushcraft Show–Elvaston

We haven’t long been back from the Bushcraft Show. It was a cracking weekend despite being a complete washout for 24 hours.

We delivered talks every day as well as Kids Nature Detective walks and camouflage sessions, and adult Tracking and Awareness sessions.

Of course we had our famous Table of Death on show for people to experience the signs that animals leave behind on the woodland floor.

It was good to see and hear Les Stroud ie Survivorman as he and his band took to the stage on Sunday.

It was great to see old friends like John Arthur, Richard and Jason from the Woodlife Maker’s Guild …

…and  other instructors like Chris Caine, Lofty Wiseman, Ian Cresswell. And of course it was great to meet new people.

I’d like to thanks Trooper and, of course, Scout the dog for assisting us over the weekend.

Next weekend sees us back in our stomping ground of Hatfield when we our attending a National Trust event on Friday and we will be running our Diploma skills weekend on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

Bushcraft Show–Elvaston

We haven’t long been back from the Bushcraft Show. It was a cracking weekend despite being a complete washout for 24 hours.

We delivered talks every day as well as Kids Nature Detective walks and camouflage sessions, and adult Tracking and Awareness sessions.

Of course we had our famous Table of Death on show for people to experience the signs that animals leave behind on the woodland floor.

It was good to see and hear Les Stroud ie Survivorman as he and his band took to the stage on Sunday.

It was great to see old friends like John Arthur, Richard and Jason from the Woodlife Maker’s Guild …

…and  other instructors like Chris Caine, Lofty Wiseman, Ian Cresswell. And of course it was great to meet new people.

I’d like to thanks Trooper and, of course, Scout the dog for assisting us over the weekend.

Next weekend sees us back in our stomping ground of Hatfield when we our attending a National Trust event on Friday and we will be running our Diploma skills weekend on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

Mystery of the Missing Man

On the 8th July 2001 Jeffrey Hodgson disappeared while on holiday on the island of Ibiza.

On 15th October 2002, 15 months after he disappeared from the hotel, Jeffrey’s body was found by people who were climbing a remote headland cliff near Cala Llonga. It would appear that he had been there since he vanished. How he got there unaided remains a mystery.

Jeffrey Hodgson, was a mentally handicapped man with a mental age of an eight year old child. He vanished from the reception area of the Sirenis Playa Hotel in the Cala Llonga while his parents Beryl and Derek were checking into the hotel.

4 years ago, a family holiday brought me to the exact same area. Unaware of the story at the time, I, too, climbed the steep sides of the Cap de Llibrell and stared in wonder at the views from the top.

When I heard of the story back in the UK, the mind of a forensic tracker went into over-drive. What attracted Jeffrey to the steep slopes and why did he choose such a difficult route? What made Jeffrey suddenly veer off the gravel track and become lost? Why did he die? Why did the Spanish authorities wait for so long to start the search? Why did the UK coroner declare an open verdict even though there was apparently no criminality involved? If trackers had been deployed, would they have found Jeffrey before he so tragically died?

We will probably never know the answer to any of these questions, but at least I will have the opportunity to try and visualise what was conceivable, probable or down-right impossible because I am returning to the area.

Tracking isn’t just about the footprints in the sand. Jeffrey’s prints have long since disappeared. Tracking is a relationship between the tracker, the quarry, the environment, the geography, the journey, and space and time. The relationships must be personal. When humans go missing, some of the relationships get disrupted, or they take on unusual characteristics especially if there are other variables involved such as depression or mental disability.

I hope that any findings will be fed into a research project which is being undertaken by a university and 2 police forces. I will share these details at a later date.

The full story of Jeffery’s disappearance is here http://where’sjeffrey.org