Here in the south East of England snow is on the ground for only a few days each year. This makes the one or two days when there is a fresh snowfall extra special as you can see exactly what’s around and what they’ve been up to
Beech Mast As A Food Source
2011 was a great year for Beech Mast on a couple of trees on my patch. As I watched the mast ripen my thoughts turned to the usefulness of this plentiful food source.
Fallow Deer Rut
A short and sweet video of me blabbering on about the fallow deer rut and a short clip of a Fallow buck on his rutting stand. Filmed on Saturday afternoon on Cannock Chase in Staffordshire.
Going Back To My Roots
I’ve recently returned to my childhood home for a while so I’m seeing the landscape here through fresh and more experienced eyes. The last time I was really part of this landscape all I wanted to do was pick blackberries, swing on clematis vines like a little ginger Tarzan or catch fish and crayfish. While [...]
Why Can’t All Days Be Like This?
It’s a bright, cold morning with thick dew and a little frost on the tired autumn grass. We’ve come to a favourite spot in the Ashdown Forest in East Sussex. From our vantage point, looking north we can see for miles, right the way to the greensand ridge that borders the Weald. We’re in typical [...]
Rabbit Tracks In The Snow
I’ve just been looking through some photos I took last winter and came across these. They show a rabbit track with an interesting twist. The snow has been melting for a day or so. The snow that’s been compressed by the rabbit’s weight has taken longer to thaw than the surrounding snow leaving this bumpy track. [...]
The Seasons March On
I had that first feeling of autumn a week or two ago. Just a tiny touch but it was definitely there. Now just to prove that time is flying by as usual I’m crunching my way over windblown hazelnuts and squelching my way through unripe apples, plums and even the odd overripe (sometimes you just [...]
Blackthorn vs. Hawthorn – An Identification Guide
I’m often getting asked how to tell the difference between hawthorn and blackthorn. So, here’s a practical photo guide: Hawthorn and Blackthorn are both members of the same plant family – the Rose family or Rosaceae. Once you recognise them you’ll see they have features in common which are also shared by other members of [...]
Burdock Root – When Should I Harvest?
When looking for wild food sources we ideally want ones that can provide more bang for our buck – a reasonable return for the work we put into harvesting. When it comes to edible roots and tubers the first one that usually springs to mind is burdock. So how do we find the roots that [...]
Elf Cups And Tea Caddies
I often see blue stained pieces of dead wood when out an about. I’d always heard that this was used locally in the highly decorative Tunbridge Ware woodwork fashionable in the 19th century. When I saw some today I thought it was high time I found out more about this. The fungus which causes the [...]