Holiday Outings (Part One)

I’ve had a great few days off work – and apart from tomorrow when I have to go in, I’ve still got until next Wednesday off.

I’ve been out for a few short excursions, but nothing major. On Tuesday, I met up with JP at Hatfield Forest. We went for bimble into the forest as the snow melted around us and tried out some new cutlery from Duncan Chandler. I’ll do a full review later, but this trio of a neck knife, Bushcraft style knife and Nessmuk camp knife certainly looks promising.

I was very impressed with the camp knife as JP put it through it’s paces. It was well weighted and almost felt like a leuku. The belt knife made short work of making a feather stick, which, despite the cold and damp, JP duly lit with a firesteel. The neck knife has a normal sized handle, which felt good in the hand.

Today I took a member of our conservation group on a tracking mission. We knew there were a number of fallow on-site and wondered how they managed to get into a secure fenced-in area. The idea then was to track the deer to the entry exit point and hopefully see some of them on the way.

The conservation group aren’t too keen on having the deer on site as there are plans to put on a total of 10 thousand trees in the area. That’s a lot of food for a fallow!

I figured out a start point based on re I thought they might lay up in a sheltered area; and low and behold we immediately found some tracks leading along a fence-line. The droppings indicated that this trail had been used in the last 24 hours. All we had to do was follow the fence-line.

After a couple of hundred yards, a couple of other trails converged and pointed like an outstretched arm to a hole in the fence. I wasn’t convinced this was the only entry exit, so we walked on. After another hundred yards or so, we came across another smaller hole. Nevertheless, by examining the hairs on the wire, we could definitely say they were fallow.

To finish the job, we continued along the fence-line making sure there were no other holes. Even though I had my nose to the ground, I remembered to look up occasionally, and there, through the fog, I saw 3 fallow does at about 50 yards. They had already spotted us and were standing stock still looking in our direction. It was an eerie sight and I managed to get this picture as they stotted off in the opposite direction.

A nice end to an overall  successful little mission.

No doubt I’ll have more to report on next week. Until then – have a happy New Year.