Action Indicators

I came across this great example of an action indicator the other day. It is one of my cats (and not the Beast of Exmoor). An action indicator is pretty much what it sounds like - it is an indicator of an action. In this case the print on the right shows a turning motion indicating a change in direction.

I think it is clear that the print on the right looks as if it has been twisted in the mud - which is of course exactly what it has done! Any questions just post a comment!

Exmoor badgers

It has been a while since I posted anything so I thought I ought to get something down in writing. I have been quite busy but I did manage to get out a few days ago for a walk around the local patch.

It was very nice to come across new activity at a badger sett entrance. There was fresh earth liberally scattered around as well as some nice compression shapes in the soil.

I walked further down the valley and in amongst the human and dog prints I found a particularly nice badger compression shape. It was great to be able to follow this particular badger for about 40yds before it turned off into private land. You can also see an indirect registration with another foot.

Fenix L0D CE

I recently became the proud owner of a new gadget! They do say that small ones are more juicy and this is definitely the case with the rather diminutive Fenix. Now I have said that this is a review - perhaps a grand term for some ramblings by me, so please bear with me.

First of all I would like to to say that the service from Quality Flashlights (from whom I got the torch) was superb and the price was competitive at £25.95.The tech specs are taken directly from the web site:

Utilizes a Cree 7090 XR-E LED with a life of 50,000 hours

- Five output types: 20 Lumens(3.5hrs)

-> 7.5 Lumens(8.5hrs)

-> 50 Lumens(1hrs)

->Strobe

-> SOS

- Uses one 1.5V AAA battery, inexpensive and widely available

- 7.35cm (L) x 1.4cm (D)

- Input voltage: 0.8V~3.3V

- Made of aircraft grade aluminum

- Durable Type III hard anodized finish

- 14.5-gram weight (excluding batteries)

- Water-resistant (dunkable)

- Toughened ultra clear glass lens with AR coating

The specs don't do it justice - it is just quite awesome for such a small light. I decided to test it against a couple of my other torches, namely a Maglite 2 D cell and a Stormlite pocket torch. As I said, this is not a comprehensive or very technical review, in fact it is quite subjective, so here goes.

Much to the dismay of my family I disapperared off to a darkened room with a handful of torches. I lined up the torches so they were shining on to the same bit of wall giving me my start point:

The Fenix gave the purest whitest light, the Maglite was quite yellow and the Stormlite had a purplish-pink tinge to it.The Fenix had the widest 'spot' (set on max brightness for all tests), the Stormlite second and the Maglite third (set on spot throughout the comparisons).

The Fenix had the most even spill from around the spot and the widest, next was the Maglite with a more uneven spill and the least spill was from the Stormlite.

I staggered out of the dark room into a dark paddock for the next test - the distance test. This is where the Maglite shone (pardon the pun!). It maintained its spot over the longest distance (50m+), next was the Fenix which wasn't exactly a spot but threw a usable (but diffuse) light out to about 40-50m and then the Stormlite only managed about 30m of usable diffuse light.

Pros and Cons:

Pros - very small, lightweight, runs on AAA batteries, excellent light output, robust, cheap for the amount of lumens

Cons - relatively poor runtime (Stormlite claims 80+ hours on 1 AA)

I am mightily impressed with the Fenix. It produces a phenomonal amount of light from a very small package. It makes for an excellent EDC or in survival kit. Batteries are cheap. The different running options are very good - the strobe is very eye catching over distance as is the SOS strobe. I may do a distance experiment if 'er indoors is willing to stand outside, as I drive up the beacon increasing the distance from about 1 mile to 1.5 miles, to see how visible it is.

Having said all that, one of the most impressive features of the Fenix is the lanyard ring . What, I hear you cry! The clever people at Fenix have cut a small section out of the base ring so that the lanyard ring can fit into it making sure that the torch can stand upright and act as a candle!

Well thank you for reading this rambling 'review' and I hope you find it useful. All I have to do now is justify buying the L1D which has almost double the maximum lumens output and about 3 times the runtime (at lowest setting) for only £5 more than the L0D.

Tracks4life is up!

Yesterday, I posted up the majority of my new website (www.tracks4life.com). There are still a few things left to do on it, like fix some dates of courses but it is there for the world to see.

I hope you go have a look and enjoy it.

PS I must start posting some more interesting things :)

A walk in the woods

Yesterday we managed to get out for a short walk before it got dark in one of the local woodlands. I hadn't been there before so I had no idea what to expect.


We started off on normal forestry tracks which had lots of the usual tracks - people, dogs and vehicles. Then as we got a bit further in we started finding lots of deer tracks, and I mean lots! We also came across some old washed out fox scat that looked as if it had quite a few bits of pheasant in it.



The bird life was also very good with Buzzard and Bullfinch in prominence. Unfortunately I didn't have the long lens with me for the camera so missed out on some very good opportunities for photos. Lesson learnt.

As we progressed we came across more fox tracks, badger tracks, pheasant and more deer tracks. All in all, for a short inpromptu walk it was brilliant.

Finally!

We had the last bit of plastering done last weekend. I would highly recommend the guys who did the work for us. They worked hard and are very competitive on price - they trade under the name 'Atlantic Finishings' (01823 334928) and work out of Taunton. Go on...give them a call!

Happy New Year

Happy New Year to all my readers.

I have a good feeling about this coming year. I am feeling very positive about my new company Tracks4life and all that it promises. I am looking forward to running some tracking and bushcraft courses in the spring. I have also been approached to run a team building day for a local charity. It's all very positive energy and it makes me see that school will be a success.

I wish you all every success for 2007!