Whoa, ho, ho, ho - sinister Peter Cushing-type laugh. Time for a little experiment. Enough of this nonsense.
I had some bits and pieces of wood lying around drying out that were just begging to be abused. So I dug out a pine hearth, a hazel drill, a holly drill and my trusty teak bearing block (salvaged from an old table leg). I decided to go against the grain and have a little experiment with drill shape. I fly in the face of convention, ha!
In one of Ray Mears' books he says that the rounded end of the drill should go in the hearth because of greater friction and the pointy end should go in the block because of less friction. Seems logical but I was bit bored and decided to have a go with my rather eclectic mix of kit. My thinking was this, if the pointy end was in the hearth then due to its smaller circumference you would achieve faster rotations relative to the amount of effort put in. You would also be able to apply proportionately greater pressure for the same amount of force due to its smaller surface area. Elementary physics something to do with woman in high heels, elephants and who you would prefer to be stood on by! I believe that there are specialist websites for that sort of thing. I'm not sure what happens if the elephant is wearing heels though?
By contrast having the rounded end in the block means that it generates less heat due to slower rotation speeds even though it is presenting a larger surface area. Of course my physics could be completely cr*p!
Either way I went for it. I managed smoke very easily and after a couple of passable attempts at recreating the bouncing bomb effect with flying drills I got a really good ember. This worked for both the hazel and holly drills and didn't take much effort. The reverse configuration seemed to work well though the penalty was greater wear on the pointy end.
An interesting way to spend an hour on a sunny Saturday afternoon. The question is - has anyone else flown in the face of wisdom and tried doing it differently (the bowdrill that is)?
bowdrill,fire by friction, bushcraft
Sunday, 28 June 2009
Ramblers in the mist!
Dianne Fossey I'm not. Anyway, a couple of days ago I went for a walk on Dunkery Beacon with my dog, well puppy really, Barney. Nothing particularly special about that really except we were engulfed in a rather thick mist.
I decided I fancied having a little walk out in the mist mainly because I hadn't done it for so long. It was pretty hairy driving up there because visibility was about 20 feet. Needless to say there were no other cars parked up there when we arrived. Perhaps no one else was stupid enough to deliberately go for a walk in really thick mist. Well, it's an easy path and it wasn't as if I was going to get lost, was it?
So, the two great explorers headed out into the whiteness. It was great fun and I loved it! The mist was like a blanket of silence wrapped round you. There was total and utter silence and it was marvellous. As we made our way up to the beacon itself, I did indeed hear something in the distance. Voices. They were very faint to start with but were growing louder by the second. It was interesting hearing the conversation revolve around characters from the Pirates of the Caribbean series of movies. Eventually 6 young lads came marching out of the mist - clearly they were Duke of Edinburgh scheme judging by their poor equipment and overburdened rucksacks. Only one of them returned my jaunty greeting (perhaps too jaunty considering the weather). Hey ho!
We did reach the beacon in good time. Initially I did think we were alone until I saw a behatted individual huddled with his or her back up against a stone, seemingly engrossed in a book. They didn't look up which I thought strange but they may well have thought I was a nutter as only a nutter would walk up the beacon in a very, very thick mist. They may have been missing a point there.
We headed back to the vehicle after a few more minutes. No one lese joined us on the return trip and it was nice to savour the silence for a few more minutes. Ah, bliss!
I decided I fancied having a little walk out in the mist mainly because I hadn't done it for so long. It was pretty hairy driving up there because visibility was about 20 feet. Needless to say there were no other cars parked up there when we arrived. Perhaps no one else was stupid enough to deliberately go for a walk in really thick mist. Well, it's an easy path and it wasn't as if I was going to get lost, was it?
So, the two great explorers headed out into the whiteness. It was great fun and I loved it! The mist was like a blanket of silence wrapped round you. There was total and utter silence and it was marvellous. As we made our way up to the beacon itself, I did indeed hear something in the distance. Voices. They were very faint to start with but were growing louder by the second. It was interesting hearing the conversation revolve around characters from the Pirates of the Caribbean series of movies. Eventually 6 young lads came marching out of the mist - clearly they were Duke of Edinburgh scheme judging by their poor equipment and overburdened rucksacks. Only one of them returned my jaunty greeting (perhaps too jaunty considering the weather). Hey ho!
We did reach the beacon in good time. Initially I did think we were alone until I saw a behatted individual huddled with his or her back up against a stone, seemingly engrossed in a book. They didn't look up which I thought strange but they may well have thought I was a nutter as only a nutter would walk up the beacon in a very, very thick mist. They may have been missing a point there.
We headed back to the vehicle after a few more minutes. No one lese joined us on the return trip and it was nice to savour the silence for a few more minutes. Ah, bliss!
Tuesday, 23 June 2009
Snow, ice and wolves - Part 5
Wild wolf tracks!!!! (Jump up and down and get all excited)
Well this is what we came for and finally we have found some wolf tracks made by a real live wolf and one that is not in captivity. Very, very cool. It has literally been a long slog to find these beauties but we did get there. This time round we were in a different park. We started off on the main track, split the group into three and each group started cutting for sign at different points.
Within 200 yards of our drop off we found day old wolf tracks. The other groups also found wolf tracks of differing ages and some even had urine associated with them. We even found scat in the middle of the track. Needless to say we were all a bit excited by now.
Next part of the plan was to move away from the track and see if we could cut across the wolves trail further on. Well we all slogged off in our different groups and covered quite a distance between us but none of us had any luck in finding more wolf.
We did find lots of other things. We saw a wild boar family unit in the distance, one of which had a very bad limp.
We later cut across their trail and saw them at close quarters and saw that there was puss and blood in the tracks of the wounded boar. It would be lucky if it survived the night. Evening was drawing on so we headed to an observation tower to see if the wolves were going to howl but despite our best efforts at imitating the calls, we had no luck in hearing the real thing!
Back at our digs we entertained the locals by testing out our gear at -18C who clearly thought we were totally crazy.
Of course they are completely right!
Tomorrow being our last day we plotted and planned as to possible routes to take, how many teams to use and the such in order to thrash the area and find more wolf tracks. The anticipation was hard to contain but we managed somehow.
tracking,wolf, Poland
Well this is what we came for and finally we have found some wolf tracks made by a real live wolf and one that is not in captivity. Very, very cool. It has literally been a long slog to find these beauties but we did get there. This time round we were in a different park. We started off on the main track, split the group into three and each group started cutting for sign at different points.
Within 200 yards of our drop off we found day old wolf tracks. The other groups also found wolf tracks of differing ages and some even had urine associated with them. We even found scat in the middle of the track. Needless to say we were all a bit excited by now.
Next part of the plan was to move away from the track and see if we could cut across the wolves trail further on. Well we all slogged off in our different groups and covered quite a distance between us but none of us had any luck in finding more wolf.
We did find lots of other things. We saw a wild boar family unit in the distance, one of which had a very bad limp.
We later cut across their trail and saw them at close quarters and saw that there was puss and blood in the tracks of the wounded boar. It would be lucky if it survived the night. Evening was drawing on so we headed to an observation tower to see if the wolves were going to howl but despite our best efforts at imitating the calls, we had no luck in hearing the real thing!
Back at our digs we entertained the locals by testing out our gear at -18C who clearly thought we were totally crazy.
Of course they are completely right!
Tomorrow being our last day we plotted and planned as to possible routes to take, how many teams to use and the such in order to thrash the area and find more wolf tracks. The anticipation was hard to contain but we managed somehow.
tracking,wolf, Poland
Saturday, 23 May 2009
Snow, ice and wolves - part 4
Basically, this our fourth full day, was to be a travel day, as we moved areas in order to try our luck in a totally different part of the country.
Our first stop was by a river where we hoped to find sign of beaver. And beaver we found! There was plenty of evidence of beaver gnawing through trees and we found a couple of slides where the trees had been dragged down to the river.
You can see the teeth marks on this stump! (above)
One of the things about European beaver is that they don't build dams. Their lodges are built into the banks and are, in effect, underground. One of the guys managed to find the lodge - by putting his foot through the roof! Luckily beaver are used to repairing damage to their homes. We didn't see beaver in the flesh but we did see where there feet had been :)
We did also find plenty of mink tracks as well as the anal secretion from our beaver friends. I don't think I'll post a picture of that though!
Time to move onto a wildlife sanctuary run by a conservationist who is very keen on reintroducing the lynx back into the wild in Poland. It was a slightly strange place with lots of different enclosure for things like elk, deer, wolves and grouse - an eclectic mix of species to say the least. We entered the park through one enclosure which housed some very friendly elk. So friendly they would give you a good barging if you had the audacity to ignore them! Lovely creatures that could make a very plaintiff and quiet noise but could also do you a lot of damage if they wanted to.
We then moved onto the wolf enclosure and had very good views of the wolf pack and its behaviour - from the aggression of the alpha to the apparent 'aggression' of the omega wolf who would bare its teeth as if it was being aggressive but was, in reality, just reaffirming its place in the pack. Fascinating to watch.
Needless to say we spent quite a bit of time watching the wolves interact with each other and with us!
This is when it started to get a bit surreal. The owner said that he takes a rehabilitated Lynx out for a walk and would show us except that he had left his lead at home. Well being trackers and bushcrafters we soon knocked up a lead. He disappeared off and we were hanging around to see him walk his Lynx on the lead. Well, we were wrong on that score - the first thing we saw was a very high speed Lynx go shooting past us followed a minute later by the owner with his dog on the lead! Not only that but he also had a young deer with him too. It turns out that the deer and the Lynx were best of friends and played together all the time.
Like I said - a bit surreal but a brilliant thing to watch them play and chase with each other. Awesome!
lynx,tracking, wolf, Poland
Our first stop was by a river where we hoped to find sign of beaver. And beaver we found! There was plenty of evidence of beaver gnawing through trees and we found a couple of slides where the trees had been dragged down to the river.
You can see the teeth marks on this stump! (above)
One of the things about European beaver is that they don't build dams. Their lodges are built into the banks and are, in effect, underground. One of the guys managed to find the lodge - by putting his foot through the roof! Luckily beaver are used to repairing damage to their homes. We didn't see beaver in the flesh but we did see where there feet had been :)
We did also find plenty of mink tracks as well as the anal secretion from our beaver friends. I don't think I'll post a picture of that though!
Time to move onto a wildlife sanctuary run by a conservationist who is very keen on reintroducing the lynx back into the wild in Poland. It was a slightly strange place with lots of different enclosure for things like elk, deer, wolves and grouse - an eclectic mix of species to say the least. We entered the park through one enclosure which housed some very friendly elk. So friendly they would give you a good barging if you had the audacity to ignore them! Lovely creatures that could make a very plaintiff and quiet noise but could also do you a lot of damage if they wanted to.
We then moved onto the wolf enclosure and had very good views of the wolf pack and its behaviour - from the aggression of the alpha to the apparent 'aggression' of the omega wolf who would bare its teeth as if it was being aggressive but was, in reality, just reaffirming its place in the pack. Fascinating to watch.
Needless to say we spent quite a bit of time watching the wolves interact with each other and with us!
This is when it started to get a bit surreal. The owner said that he takes a rehabilitated Lynx out for a walk and would show us except that he had left his lead at home. Well being trackers and bushcrafters we soon knocked up a lead. He disappeared off and we were hanging around to see him walk his Lynx on the lead. Well, we were wrong on that score - the first thing we saw was a very high speed Lynx go shooting past us followed a minute later by the owner with his dog on the lead! Not only that but he also had a young deer with him too. It turns out that the deer and the Lynx were best of friends and played together all the time.
Like I said - a bit surreal but a brilliant thing to watch them play and chase with each other. Awesome!
lynx,tracking, wolf, Poland
Monday, 18 May 2009
Well, I'm on Twitter now (god help me!). I thought it might be a useful way to keep people up to date in a quick format.
www.twitter.com/tracks4life
take a look and subscribe if you like.
Twitter
www.twitter.com/tracks4life
take a look and subscribe if you like.
Saturday, 9 May 2009
Snow, ice and wolves - Part 3
Our third full day - it makes it sound a bit like Big Brother, doesn't it? Anyway, today's plan was for another route march - this time about 15km. Again this doesn't sound like much but it is when its -18C and you are slogging through knee high snow! Dammed good fun though!
This time the route was going to be mainly through woodland with a little bit of open 'meadow' (not marsh this time).
To start with we had the usual suspects - elk, fox, brown hare and the like and we seemed to have a lot of urine this time too! As we moved further into the woods we came across some beautiful bird impressions in the snow. They were so good you could tell a whole story around them. This, of course, is the ultimate aim for a tracker.
The story was being able to see where the bird landed, had hopped a few steps, where it had fed and then flew off. You can clearly see where the tail has pressed into the ground as the bird took off again. Then about 50 yards further down we found where it had landed again and had another feed. Very cool.
One of the guys decided to follow a set of fox tracks and see where they led. Eventually he followed it to a kill site - a very interesting kill site.
Mr Fox had killed this shrew, dumped the body and pee'd on it! Quite extraordinary. Well, we trudged on and had a final bonus for the day. Pine Marten. Absolutely brilliant - a great find and fantastic to see where it had been and what it had got up to.
It was a long hard day but well worth it. The next day was to be a travel day but that one ended up being a very different day indeed.
Poland, tracking wolves
This time the route was going to be mainly through woodland with a little bit of open 'meadow' (not marsh this time).
To start with we had the usual suspects - elk, fox, brown hare and the like and we seemed to have a lot of urine this time too! As we moved further into the woods we came across some beautiful bird impressions in the snow. They were so good you could tell a whole story around them. This, of course, is the ultimate aim for a tracker.
The story was being able to see where the bird landed, had hopped a few steps, where it had fed and then flew off. You can clearly see where the tail has pressed into the ground as the bird took off again. Then about 50 yards further down we found where it had landed again and had another feed. Very cool.
One of the guys decided to follow a set of fox tracks and see where they led. Eventually he followed it to a kill site - a very interesting kill site.
Mr Fox had killed this shrew, dumped the body and pee'd on it! Quite extraordinary. Well, we trudged on and had a final bonus for the day. Pine Marten. Absolutely brilliant - a great find and fantastic to see where it had been and what it had got up to.
It was a long hard day but well worth it. The next day was to be a travel day but that one ended up being a very different day indeed.
Poland, tracking wolves
Sunday, 3 May 2009
Snow, ice and wolves - Part two
This, our second full day, was, in effect, a bit of a route march! We needed to cover a lot of ground - through forest and over frozen marsh. It promised to be a hard day.
We split into 2 groups with a view to meeting up in the middle and then going our separate ways again and thus covering more distance. Anyway, the guide we were with was a very tall chap with really long legs who seemed to be walking slowly until you actually tried to keep up with him! After 20 minutes we were sweating buckets which is not a good thing when the temperatures are so low. We stopped for a quick zone in and managed to get him to slow down - phew.
The first part of the route was forest where we saw plenty of tracks of elk, fox, red deer and roe deer. After our little stop we headed out onto the marsh which was even colder due mainly to windchill. It was here that a most amazing thing happened. Three of us stopped for a moment to look at something when a vole popped up out of nowhere and tried to climb up Ros' gaiter! It had a really good try for a minute or two before it decided to head off into one of its tunnels again. Fantastic stuff.
As we moved out onto higher ground we started finding more tracks again - this time, weasel, stoat, more vole and bird.
With the weasel tracks is some fresh urine. Though it is hard to see in this photo.
After a quick lunch stop we headed off again to cut across more marsh when we came across a wild boar lie up, less than 100m from where we had lunch - and it was fresh, still warm and had fresh scat. We had probably disturbed it when we stopped for a snack!
The next leg was going to be a long slog across the marsh which was very hard work and had the constant risk of falling through the ice. In many ways, not a lot of fun but a great experience nonetheless. Anyway at one point we went through a small bit of woodland and found fresh boar tracks - four of them in fact. We trailed them for quite some distance until we actually ended up coming up behind them where they were foraging. They knew we were there so ambled off after a few minutes but they did circle us for a while to maintain the wind advantage.
The boar track is a little indistinct in this photo but you can still see the shape and the dew claws (on the left).
What looks like an attack by a bulldozer is the result of a bit of wild boar action!
After that excitement we had quite a few clicks left to do through the marshy wastes. In terms of spoor it was a bit disappointing but again it was a nice sense of achievement to complete and survive! Overall we covered about 10km. That may not seem like a huge distance but through that kind of terrain and through knee-high snow in places, I can assure you, it was long enough.
Poland, tracking wolves
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