Garden Tool Set

Date Photographed: 06/05/2012
Location: Yorkshire Wildlife Park, Doncaster
Resources: http://www.wildaboutbritain.co.uk/hoof-fungus
Notes: This fungus is well known to grow in standing dead Birch trees. It's also used for tinder, with another common name for it being tinder fungus. I wouldn't be staying true to my enjoyment of bushcraft if I didn't embed a video of it being used for such a reason!

Why do I take the fun out of everything for myself?
It's something that I've done for years. Is it because we're always told to set goals, to achieve?

As a child I was fairly aimless and didn't really have any focus. Then as soon as I left school I seemed to get focus, but with that focus was the idea that I had to become good at something or become very knowledgeable about whatever I was focussed on. Apparently it takes 3000 hours studying something to become an 'expert'.

So, stupidly, when I become interested in something, I look around for 'best practice' approaches. I look for the governing or professional body for that topic. I look around for courses or other educational material. I look for blogs and other free resources online.

Now, how does this relate to this blog? I've always had an interest in nature, but never more so than this year.

Since January I've been dealing with the most destructive episode of depression that I've had in my life so far. I've been signed off since January. I lost my job, my social life, my hobbies, and interest in most things.

Then some how and utterly innocently I started taking photographs of plants. It was amazing. I'd take macro shots and be amazing that there was this beauty that I hadn't seen, even though I'd been looking. Then I started to try to ID plants. I already had this blog; it was more related to camping, but close enough to my new pursuit that I could adapt it to fit. Sometimes the only way I could force myself out of bed was to think of the new flowers I may have the opportunity to take photos of, in the garden or just down the street.

But then, idiotically, I started searching online for things to help me learn more. This in itself isn't a bad thing, but with the way my mind is, it's just not a good idea. I started with lectures available on YouTube from UCBerkeley about Plant Botany. They really are brilliant videos and I've learnt a lot from them. Then I started reading books on the topic. This took a long time as my level of concentration is terrible. Sometimes I'd read a whole page before I needed to rest. These books were interesting, but hard going. Then I decided to do a course with the OU about why people need plants.

It's just all too much. I've ruined my relationship with plants. I truly hope I can get it back. I'm eager to find a way to simplify my mind so that I can take my time with things and not go overboard to needing to feed the appetite for knowledge when I become interested in something. It certainly hasb't helped me get out of this slump. I want to simplify my relationship with plants, back to where it was - just taking photos and identifying plants.

I hope I can get back to that. Because while I appreciate the knowledge I've gained in such a short period of time, it's taken its toll on me. If anyone knows of techniques to help me simplify my mind or relax - to relax would be nice. PLEASE get in touch.

Thanks for reading.

Tim x

Brownsea Island is one of our favourite places. We enjoy the feeling of isolation, the chance to see red squirrels, and the amount of habitats available in such a small piece of land.

Brownsea is the largest of the islands within Poole Harbour, Dorset and one of the few remaining homes of the red squirrel (Sciurus vulgaris) in the UK. It is owned by the National Trust, however around half of the island is managed as a nature reserve by the Dorset Wildlife Trust.

We've found that the best way to increase encounters with red squirrels on the island is to separate yourself from the other visitors - which is important as you'll be arriving with dozens of other passengers on one of the ferries that travel to the island. After that, just walk slowly and quietly and you're likely to see the squirrels either in the trees or gathering food on the ground. This time we had a few geocaches to find near the church, so this ensured that we were mostly on our own.

I had placed the camera down to help Lucy find the geocache, which was about 5 metres away, when a red squirrel joined us. It was taking quite an interest in our bag (and camera, which I now couldn't get to without scaring away the squirrel!), before hopping up to us and sitting face height on a stump. It was a wonderful experience. After a few moments it gently hopped away again. We managed to see a few squirrels during our walk, including this one:

Talking about the different habitats, heathland it just one that visitors will encounter on the island and we saw the heath speedwell (Veronica officinalis) that created a lovely carpet of delicate colour - one that this green woodpecker (Picus viridis) was also enjoying; but for other reasons! Along with this Mouse-ear-hawkweed (Pilosella officinarum)





As we headed towards the beach we saw some other interesting species such as this English stonecrop (Sedum anglicum), spiral wrack seaweed (Fucus spiralis), and of course the very pretty oyster catcher (Haematopus ostralegus); which posed for some photos before having an afternoon nap.



I think we found three geocaches this time around which took us around the National Trust side of the island. It's amazing that within a few steps of having a panoramic view of the harbour, you suddenly have a completely different view - such as this path with coniferous trees.

One of a few geocaches available to find on the island.

Having a sit down and some lunch on the beach we saw what looks like an old kiln from the pottery activity of 100 years ago (lack of demand and poor quality clay resulted in this being a short endeavour). There's lots of evidence of these activities in the fragments of pottery being found along the beach. We also made ourselves a friend in this black-headed gull (Chroicocephalus ridibundus), who was quite happy to walk up to us and seemed quite tame.


We slowly walked back to the ferry and spent a few minutes in the new gift shop - which has a nice second hand book collection; which included the David Attenborough book The First Eden, which I picked up for a couple of pounds. The ferry back takes passengers on a tour around the harbour and it seemed much longer than previous times we've been on it - lasting for nearly an hour. But it's such a lovely place to be, interesting scenery and history, that we didn't mind.

Of course, I can't end this post without showing you one of the other famous species on Brownsea Island; the Peacock

Date Photographed: 16/05/2013
Location: Westbrook, Wiltshire

Sadly it's been a good long while since I last went camping. But having found these photos of my last camp back in 2011 has brought back some great - and not so great - memories.

We chose a spot away from the pine woodland for a change. If I remember rightly, we camped under Beech and it made a real difference. The light coming through the canopies of leaves really brightened the camp area.

We'd been looking online at some difference shapes for tarp set ups and decided on the one below as it provided protection from the wind behind us and from potential rain above, while still providing enough depth to use the heat radiation from the fire well.

Of the two of us, I'm definitely the more lazy camper! Mark always likes to sleep off the ground, sometimes making a bench structure, although this time opting for a structure just above the ground. I have a bivvy bag and have my self-inflating mattress and sleeping bag protected within that.

Me chilling out in front of the fire as some of our food is cooking.

Mark making his sleeping area comfy with fronds of bracken.

Leading up to our camping weekend, I'd been looking up some techniques for making cordage from roots. This idea came to me after watching Cody in Dual Survival make some in a programme. It turns out that it's quite a simple technique and I was able to show Mark, who made a fantastic bit of rope.

Mark's cordage. The technique provides cordage with strength much greater than that of the individual roots.

Here's Mark chilling by the fire.

Sadly, we had to end camp a bit early as I was being bitten frequently by an unknown insect. The bites were all around my waist, ankles and even in my armpits! Mark was affected, but luckily not so severely. After a sterling bit of research Mark found that it was an invertebrate called Chiggers that had been biting us. In the end I counted over 70 individual bites - it's an experience I will never forget!

Every day during camp we go an check on the car, on one occasion Mark filmed some of the walk back to our camp. It's a really nice bit of footage, so I've uploaded it to YouTube and you can watch it below: