BushScience; Binomial Nomenclature

You will all have heard that plants, animals and all organisms in fact have 'Latin names' in fact for those of you who may be particularly interested in fungi you may well have encountered fungi which do not have a 'common' name at all.

So why are things assigned 'Latin names'?

First of all they are not! While Latin was the language of academia at the time the system known correctly as binomial nomenclature was established a lot of the names are not really Latin and take their names instead from the person who discovered them or even from other languages. 

For example Caerostris darwini, Darwin's bark spider, an orb-weaver spider discovered in Madagascar takes it's name from Charles Darwin and the long-beaked echidna (Zaglossus attenboroughi) takes it's name from Sir David Attenborough. Both these giants in their respective fields have many other things named after them too.

Now that we have established that plants and animals do not necessarily have Latin names what is that strange double barrelled name that they have? And what is it for? 

That doubled barrelled name is part of a taxonomic system (a system of collecting, grouping and naming  things) known as binomial nomenclature, that means a two part naming system. The two parts refer to somethings genus and species. Let's look at an example;

Red Deer; Cervus elaphus

The first part of it's binomial name refers to it's genus, within a genus there may be several different species, for example red deer share their genus with sika deer (Cervus nippon), Thorolds deer (Cervus albirostris) and North American elk (Cervus canadensis). The genus is always presented with a capitalised first letter. the second part of the name is it's species, the combination of genus and species is unique to a particular organism although species names may apply to more than one species for example Reeves muntjac (muntiacus reevesi) and Reeves pheasant (Syrmaticus reevesi). An organisms species name is always presented entirely in lower case. These binomial names are always italicised in text although they can also be underlined if hand written to show that they are a scientific name. 

Carl Linneaus the father of binomial nomenclature

By Alexander Roslin - Nationalmuseum press photo, cropped with colors slightly adjusted, Public Domain, Link

Binomial nomenclature is part of a larger taxonomic structure which was established by Carl Linnaeus as Swedish Zoologist and Botanist who lived from 1701-1778. Since his work the system of binomial nomenclature has been used consistently. An organisms genus and species though fit at the very bottom of a larger system of classification, we'll use red deer again as an example;

Kingdom; Animalia (animal)

Phylum; Chordata (got a back bone)
Class; Mammalia (mammals)
Order; Artiodactyla (even toed ungulate; an ungulate is a mammal with hooves, even toed ungulates include deer, cammels, cattle and believe it or not hippopotamuses)
Family; Cervidae (deer)
Genus; Cervus
Species; elaphus

The highest level of classification is Kingdom where organisms are split into their five kingdoms of plant, animal, fungi, monera and protista. Next an animals phylum (plants have domains instead of phylum) within the animal kingdom it is at this level of classification that organisms are split into molluscs, animals with a backbone, animals with an exoskeleton, worms etc.... Next; class, within the phylum chordata their are five classes; mammal, fish, bird, reptile and amphibian. Within the class mammalia (mammals) there are twenty six orders including carnivores, rodents, bats etc... After that things get much more specific with family and then on to genus and species which you are already familiar with. 

The reasons for this sort of naming system are many, one major need being a need for scientists to communicate across language barriers. Common names are clearly not going to be the same from one language to another. If I was to tell you not to eat a röd flugsvamp for example you may not know what I mean but even if I couldn't speak English I could tell you not to eat an Amanita muscaria and you could work out which species to avoid. Nowadays I suppose you do have google translate at your finger tips on a smart phone to help you but it isn't always accurate or helpful, while google did know that a röd flugsvamp was fly agaric it was confused by dovhjort (which means fallow buck in Swdish);

Also scientific names do away with any doubt over species which may share a common name or go by various different colloquial names depending on where in the county you are, take hadge garlic for example which might be called any of the following; Garlic Mustard, Garlic Root,Hedge Garlic, Sauce-alone, Jack-in-the-bush, Penny Hedgeand Poor Man's Mustard.

So there you have it 'Latin names' avoid confusion, cross language barriers and aren't Latin. 

Applied Bushcraft; The Gamekeeper

A traditional image of a keeper surveying his 'beat' with his dogs.
By Photographes du National Geographic (http://natgeofound.tumblr.com/) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

While 'bushcraft' is a modern word the skills that have been adopted by modern recreational bushcrafters have been practised for centuries. Some bushcrafters are in my opinion preoccupied with a the idea of the ancient or primitive aspects and often forget that the skills and equipment we use as bushcrafters now represent the pinnacle of their respective technologies. Knives with fancy steels, ferocium rods and light weight tarps are not ancient or primitive and while bushcraft might be a refuge for some primitive and traditional skills it's not quite as primitive as some would like to think it is nor does it have a monopoly on traditional skills, with the revival of the Bushcraft Education blog the 'Applied Bushcraft' series is back to look at those professions which still use skills associated with bushcraft on a daily basis. Today we will be looking at Gamekeepers and the 'bushcraft' skills that they use every day.  

My oldest didn't realise just how heavy a goose
was. We clearly don't buy our Christmas goose
as you can see, this one is going to be the outer
layer of a multi bird roast which will also include
duck, pheasant, coot, partridge and pigeon

Game keeping is a very old profession but it hasn't always been called game keeping, back in the day when the only around 5000 people lived in the British Isles and survived in hunter gatherer societies hunting was a daily part of life carried out as a vital part of survival. It is likely that successful hunters were celebrated and honoured and it is also likely that hunts were considered enjoyable and exhilarating but they would not have been a recreational activity just as going to the super market today is not considered recreational (in fact it's closer to a cruel and unusual punishment, I'd rather hunt my food). As time went by and agriculture became the mainstay of subsistence hunting still played a part to supplement the regular diet provided by agriculture but as agriculture became more and more efficient so hunting became less and less necessary for survival and became a recreation. While hunting and gathering is often a 24/7 job farming doesn't have to be which allowed societies to develop. Hunting for food never died out but the recreational element of it gradually became the most important part. In the British Isles we do not even have any cultural traditions that relate to the eating of game at certain times of year, compare the Icelandic tradition of  eating ptarmigan at Christmas (although hunting ptarmigan is now banned in Iceland due to declining populations), or the Rajput tradition of game curries. But in the UK now the closest we come to a game eating tradition is the vague idea that goose is an alternative to turkey at Christmas and those who do choose goose will invariably buy one. 

As hunting became a recreational pastime providing that recreation became a profession for others.  As far back as 3,500 BC the ancient Egyptians enjoyed hunting as a pastime and professional hunters would have tended the hunting equipment, horses, dogs and chariots that would have been used in the pursuit of leopards, lions, barbary sheep, antelope and other game pursued for the table or purely for sport. Much later in medieval Britain the foresters would have served the crown and maintained the royal hunting estates know as forests and chases. The word game keeper was not yet in common usage but the foresters did similar work, largely they were responsible for the protection of game from those not allowed to hunt, the collection of fines and the preservation of game. It is strange that while game would once have been pursued by all as an integral part of their daily lives and ultimately their survival that as people became more 'civilised' that right was reserved for at least the rich or royal and in the case of some parts of the medieval period solely the King. During the medieval period particularly under the rule of the Plantagenet kings the 'beasts of the chase' (deer, boar etc..) were reserved for the King or those with his specific licence and permission, nobles hunting without permission would be fined and peasants often brutally punished and sometimes executed depending on the perceived severity of their crime. For example the taking of a roe deer carried the punishment of blinding until they were reclassified as a 'beast of the warren' in 1338 and became fair game to all who wanted to hunt them (this ultimately led to their extinction in most of England and Wales until concerted efforts were made to re-introduce them in the 1800's). Medieval sport always revolved around the deer and boar and although pheasants, partridges and grouse were found in the British Isles they were not valued as a sporting quarry until much more recently and it is with game bird hunting that we associate the 'game keeper'. With a decline in the vast space required for hunting in the medieval fashion and the invention of effective breach loading firearms driven shooting started becoming popular in the 1800's and now forms the mainstay of organised shooting and 'hunting' in the UK.  The word hunting needs some discussion at this point, in the UK the word hunting would normally be used to reference the hunting of an animal with dogs and possibly also horses whereas all other forms of hunting are normally described as 'shooting' often with the appropriate quarry name attached or 'stalking' (see a post from a few years ago for more info). 

With the growth of game bird shooting the game keeper became an integral part of the rural landscape and even today uses a whole raft of skills which we associate with bushcraft as part of their daily routine. 

Tracking; 

Weather it's determining the cause of death of a pheasant from it's remains, working out where a fox earth is, tracking a wounded deer or tracking poachers a game keeper is constantly interpreting the sign he sees in the countryside. Being able to tell the difference between a nest of hatched eggs and one which has been raided by a crow or badger is vital as is being able to tell the difference between a fox print and a jack russell print or mink and otter prints or between the trail left by a badger and a fox. All these skills relate  directly to the work of a gamekeeper. Perhaps we need to make sure we are setting a legal snare on a fox run rather than a badger run or identifying the right spot to set a snare on a rabbit run based on it's foot falls. Maybe we need to determine whether there are otters in an area so we can decide whether it is safe to set lethal traps for mink or live catch traps in case we accidentally catch an otter. Keepers and pest controllers use a specific piece of equipment to catch the signs of these animals; 

These 'Mink rafts' catch the footprints of animals that use them which can then be used to determine the appropriate course of action, if mink are present and there is no risk of catching non target species such as otters or water voles lethal traps can be used, replacing the clay/sand mix with something like a mark 6 fen trap or if other species are present a live catch trap could be used instead to ensure that non target species are not harmed and can be humanely released in case of accidental capture.

A mink raft set and ready for action. 

Trapping;

I'll refer you to our bushcraft and the law series for this particular topic because although trapping may interest the bushcraft fraternity there is rarely justification for the use of traps in recreational buschraft and it is particularly important to remember that the primitive traps that we as bushcrafters are most interested in are actually illegal. Gamekeepers however do often use traps as part of their regular routine and have to abide by certain laws and guidelines regarding the types of traps that they use and how often they are checked and what species you can use them on. There is already a lot on this blog about trapping and you can view the relevant posts HERE. Mostly game keepers will be trapping pest and predators which if uncontrolled would devastate wildlife populations things such as corvids (Crows, magpies etc..) using larsen and ladder traps. 

Foxes will primarily be controlled by shooting but snares and live capture traps also play a significant part in their control. Historically gin traps would also have been used but these have been illegal in the UK since 1957. 

A gin trap; these were designed to hold the captured animal by the foot or leg and often led to severe injury and escape, animals were even recorded to have bitten off their own legs to escape. They have been illegal since the late 50's in the UK. 

Spring traps come in various shapes and sizes and licence for use against specific quarry depending on their size, power and design. This specification can not be deviated from and if a trap of the wrong design is used on quarry that it is not licensed for the law has been broken. For example a fen mark 6 can be used to trap mink but a mark 4 can't as it is too small and not powerful enough. Much of this trapping legislation is in the process of significant change at the moment and the fen traps and magnum traps that have been the mainstay of a keepers pest control equipment for the best part of half a century are about to be outlawed and replaced with new traps which are even more human and which satisfy the condition of the International Humane Trapping Standards. For more information check out some previous posts on trapping HERE and HERE.

Providing Food;

Ultimately the work of a game keeper culminates with the shooting season when pheasants, partridges and grouse are shot. While many participate in this shooting as sport ultimately what is produced is food and a lot of bushcraft revolves around the finding, production and cooking of food. A keeper needs to be able to bring down game, or more often vermin,  it's the paying guests that should be shooting the game, which can enter the human food chain. The pheasants and partridges shot on the shoot are a sought after luxury product, although sadly many retailers no longer accept wild game that has been shot preferring to import for example venison from farms in New Zealand. Much of what the keeper shoots can be eaten too; pigeons, rabbits, jackdaws and squirrels are all delicious and even the less sought after game species which are rarely shot on shoots but when they are generally just get fed to dogs and ferrets like coots and moorhens for example all make a good meal. There are other vermin I would not recommend eating; fox for example in my experience tastes like bitter spam. Whether the animals and birds are shot as game by paying guests or by the keeper as vermin they are food though and the getting of food is an important part of bushcraft as well as one of the outcomes of the keepers work. 

Fur and Feather;

Bushcrafters often pride themselves in not wasting anything and keepers are much the same, I have often paid a significant percentage of my annual shotgun ammunition bill by selling squirrel tails, pheasant tails, jay wings and other resources harvested from game or vermin to people who use them to make fishing flys. Game yields far more than just meat and while the average keeper or deer stalker may not make hide glue or use animal bones to make needles and other tools as would have been done prehistorically they do make a lot of use can be made of the skins and other products of a shot animal. Rabbit skins become dummy's for dog training, non trophy deer antlers become dog chews, whistles, key rings and walking stick handles, hare's are carefully skinned so the short hair from their faces can be used for fishing flies, deer hooves become traditional walking stick handles and very little is wasted.  

Environmental Awareness;

As bushcrafters we pride ourselves in being able to identify plants, trees and other wildlife, in understanding what the changing seasons means for the countryside and in recognising the subtle signs of the wildlife that lives there. We know the best places to look for certain plants and wildlife and the best time of year to find them. Keepers have been the guardians of this information for many years and before bushcraft became a popular recreational activity they along with farmers, foresters, thatchers, terrier men and other 'country folk' would have been the ones who had a monopoly on this information, in fact I would hazard a guess that there isn't a single half competent bushcrafter who hasn't learned at least a few things from an old keeper, farmer or 'country person' over the course of their careers. Keepers need to know where to go to find the fox that's been bothering the pheasants, or the best place to set a trap for a stoat or a snare for a rabbit or the best time of year to shoot crows and the right time of year to catch pheasants for breeding and a whole host of other things and this knowledge only comes through regular time spent outdoors in all weathers and seasons and spending that time outdoors is part of a keepers job.  

So that's a little insight into the bushcraft skills used by game keepers, there will be more coming soon as we expand out applied bushcraft series. The other once regular series of the Bushcraft Education blog will all be back soon as well with a Bushscience post all about why common ink caps are poisonous when combined with alcohol but absolutely fine to eat at other times due out next week. 

I hope you are enjoying the new content and we will keep it coming, you can expect at least one post a week. 

Geoff 

Bushcraft and the Law; Trapping Update

Fenn and Magnum trap

As bushcrafters we are often inspired and amazed by the stories of the mountain men of North America and their exploits across barren wilderness regions like the Rocky Mountains and their ability to live with little more than what they carried in their ‘possibles pouches’. What brought the mountain men to the frontier was the availability of beaver. At the time beaver skins, or ‘plews’ as the mountain men called them, were in high demand for the manufacture of hats and thousands of beaver were trapped over the years between the mid seventeen hundreds to the 1830’s when the demand for beaver hats, and the availability of beaver themselves crashed. Gone are the days though of the leg hold traps used by the mountain men and the wholesale, unregulated trapping of the mountain man era, and here in the UK we are expecting some fairly major changes in the laws that relate to trapping in the next few months.

Weasel trapped using fenn trap

In the UK we still use traps in the countryside a lot but almost exclusively for the purpose of pest control, to reduce damage to crops, or prevent the predation of game birds. We already have whole rafts of legislation which controls these activities but we are expecting more to come into force which may drastically change the way trapping is carried out in the UK. I discussed the use of snares and the banning of gin traps in my previous Trapping and the Law article in issue 56 and while I won’t cover gin traps again as they haven’t been legal since 1958 and nothing has, or will, change that now. However there has been a slight change in guidelines regarding snares in Wales and I’ll cover that first.

The breakaway link on a snare approved
 by the new
Welsh Government ‘Code of Best
 practice on the
 use of Snares in Fox Control’

As well as the stops and swivels that a commercially purchased snare would have the guideless for use of fox snares in Wales now demand a ‘break-away’ a weaker link built in to the snare near it’s eye which allows the automatic release of larger, stronger non-target species if they are accidentally caught. This new guidance on snares is specific to Wales and comes from the Welsh Governments Code of Best practice on the use of Snares in Fox Control.  

Moving on to spring traps, there have been developments over the last few years which may have a drastic impact on the types of traps we can use here in the UK in the very near future.

   

In 1991 a proposed EU embargo on furs trapped in countries which allowed ‘inhumane methods’ particularly the use of leg-hold traps,  inspired the development of the ‘Agreement on International Humane Trapping Standards’ (AIHTS). It took several years to finalise the conditions of AIHTS which was finished in 1997. It does specifically apply to animas trapped for their fur though: In the UK most recognised fur bearing animals are already protected; marten, beaver, badger and otter and couldn’t be trapped or harmed regardless of the ‘humaneness’ of the method employed. Mink and fox are both regularly used for fur but this fur is normally sourced from farms rather than wild animals and so these animals are not covered by AIHTS. The one animal specifically mentioned that is still regularly trapped in the UK is the stoat. In other countries it is trapped as a fur bearing animal  because of it’s desirable white winter fur, when it’s in it’s white coat it is known as ‘ermin’. Ermin are rarely seen in England or Wales as the climate does not demand their coat change for camouflage. It’s the fact that stoats appear on the list of species covered by AIHTS that spells potential change of trapping in the UK. In 1998 the EU committed to following AIHTS standards and a decade later in 2008 implementation of AIHTS began in all signatory countries after Russia agreed to it’s guidelines. After the 2008 implementation five years were allowed for testing and certification of traps with a further three years allowed for prohibition of traps which did not meet the new standards. That eight years brings us to July 2016 and the UK has been a bit behind in testing and implementing the use of approved traps.

DOC 200 trap approved for use
on grey squirrels, stoats, rats,
 weasel and mink

Several traps were added to the ‘Spring trap approval order’ in 2007 at the request of the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust (GWCT) in anticipation of the AIHTS standards being adopted, the DOC (Department of Conservation) range of traps from New Zealand were approved for use based on the fact that they had passed AIHTS standards for stoats in tests carried out in New Zealand.

Since then other traps have also been approved including the koro trap (added to the spring trap approval order in March 2016) which has already passed AIHTS tests in Canada. 

The main change in terms of the function of the traps is that rather than killing by a blow to the body, with the intention of breaking the animals spine causing death within 300 seconds, the trap must kill by a blow to the head and cause death within 45 seconds. These traps must all still be set in a tunnel as dictated by the specific conditions of the spring trap approval order  for example the DOC trap “must be set in an artificial tunnel constructed to the design specified by the Department of Conservation.”

A DOC 200 in it’s Department of Conservation designed tunnel showing how a target species can only enter the trap head first allowing for a clean kill

A KORO ‘Large Rodent Double Coil
Spring Snap Trap

The adoption of AIHTS standards will certainly mean that traps which have been commonly used for the control of stoats will no longer be permitted for that purpose in the UK such as the Fenn traps and Magnum traps which have already been found not to meet AIHTS standards in tests carried out in Canada and New Zealand. While the change may be as simple as prohibiting the use of these traps on stoats specifically it will likely have a greater impact as it will be almost impossible restrict access by a stoat to, for example, a fenn mark IV set for a rabbit. This may well mean that as of July 2016 fenn and magnum traps are no longer legal for use in the UK at all. 

Doubtless trapping legislation will change again in the future and traps will continue to be designed to meet future conditions of ‘humaneness’ as well as to make them more effective and efficient, we have already seen a gas powered trap in New Zealand which can automatically re-set it ‘self 24 times before it needs any attention and we are bound to see more innovation like this in the future. 

For the bushcrafter this is all fascinating, although we may prefer the simplicity of a Paiute deadfall or twitch up snare it is important that we are aware of the legislation that governs something that is a bushcraft skill.

Geoff

bushcraft and the law: Elm

English Elms in Preston Parks Coronation Garden, Brighton.
By Ulmus man (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons

The English Elm (Ulmus minor) was one of the iconic trees of the British countryside until, over the last one hundred years, repeated epidemics of Dutch Elm disease (often shortened to DED) killed over sixty million British Elms. Dutch Elms disease has not been eradicated and still effects elms in the British countryside today.

The effects of Dutch Elms Disease presenting themselves in a tree in Westpoint NY.
By Ahodges7 (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons

Dutch Elms Disease is an infection of the fungus Ophiostoma novo-ulmi, although the earlier 1920's epidemic was caused by the related Ophiostoma ulmi. The fungus causes blockages in the trees water transport system which leads to the symptoms visible above, the wilting of leaves and death of twigs and branches and eventually spreads to the root system of the tree as well. This death of twigs and branches is known as 'flagging' and 'shepherds crooks' can also be observed where the tips of the dying twigs start to turn down. A good resource for recognising these and other symptoms of Dutch elms disease can be found here. 

Dutch elms disease is spread by beetles of the genus Scolytus, or elm bark beetles,which pupate in the bark of elms, the beetles seem to prefer taller trees and require a minimum thickness of bark to breed and feed. As such younger elms can survive for a while without becoming infected as their bark is too thin to house the beetle. 

The Larger European Elm Beetle Scolytus scolytus 

Beetle feeding galleries
Ronnie Nijboer [CC0], via Wikimedia Commons

When the second major outbreak of Dutch Elms disease struck the British Isles in the late 1960's in to the 70's laws were put in place to govern the attempted control of the disease. These laws effectively gave the right to enter land and designate trees to be destroyed to prevent the further spread of the disease but also stated that the bark from healthy trees should be destroyed by fire before the wood is transported away from the site and that wood not removed from site should also be destroyed by fire. 

The original piece of legislation, the Plant Health; The Dutch Elm Disease (Local Authorities) Order 1984 is available here.  

How might this effect your bushcrafting if you're making string or containers from elm bark?

Hunter Gatherer Ethics pt 4 (Non-target species)

Trapping can be an excellent part of an overall strategy for controlling pests and predators or gathering wild food. However there is an added complication with traps of the increased danger of catching things which your didn't mean to. 

This isn't normally such a problem when using firearms because you can see the animal you are aiming at, although there are cases of very irresponsible people shooting at silhouettes or just the glare of eyes in a lamp without properly identifying the target and shooting the wrong animal.

Just as the light from the camera flash is making these sika deer's eyes glow the light of a lamp can be used to illuminate the eyes of a range of targets, from rabbits to foxes, it is very irresponsible to shoot at eyes without positively identifying your target.

The problem with catching non-target species is that you may put yourself in a difficult legal position, for example by catching species which are protected, and there is the danger that you will compromise the population of species which you shouldn't be killing. 

This is a kania trap which we can use in the UK for trapping squirrels, mink and other small vermin, It can be baited to attract certain species and the trigger mechanism is designed in such a way as to prevent birds from setting it off easily.

The 'stops' on these snares prevent the snares from tightening up so tightly that they cut into a target species but they also used to be known as 'deer stops' as they prevent the snare tightening up on a deer's leg. 

The tunnel over this trap and the sticks in front of it are required to prevent non-target species being caught by the trap. In the UK the spring trap approval order requires that these spring traps be set in a tunnel.

In the picture below I have taken advantage of a hole at the bottom of a tree to set a trap in but have still used sticks to block off access to non-target species.

These are some common traps, all legal for use in the UK, which might be used for controlling pests and predators, from Back to Front; Kania 2000, Fenn Mk 6, Fen Mk 4, Magnum 110.

All those involved in trapping or hunting should be very careful to make sure they only catch the species they intended, accidents can happen with traps but if things are prepared and arranged properly these can be minimised.

Setting snares the correct height above the ground, four fingers high for a rabbit or a span and a half for foxes will ensure that you don't accidentally catch a badger which you all know walk with their heads fairly close to the ground so will just go under a fox snare. Or even better not using snares where you know badgers or other protected species are present.

Only using killing traps around water when you are sure you won't accidentally catch a water vole or otter instead of your targeted mink. These measures are not only important to keep you out of trouble but also to ensure the safety of protected species.

Geoff

Student Visit to Riddy Wood

Students from Reaseheath College’s Game Management course have been in Riddy Wood this week carrying out a range of jobs and tasks which have not only been a great help to the project but have helped them gather the data they need for their next deer management assignment.

One of the things the students do as part of their ‘Introduction to Deer Management’ studies is to assess the population of deer in a given area and write a management plan accordingly. While they were in Riddy Wood they were able to observe the damage done by deer to coppice woodland;

A hazel stool coppiced one year ago which has not been protected from browsing by deer and other pests. 

These observations gave them a very rough idea of the density of the deer population in the area and helps them set suitable objectives in their deer management plan. They were also able to take part in some of the coppicing and learn how to protect coppiced hazel and ash stools from browsing by deer, hares and rabbits by ‘brashing’ over with hawthorn and blackthorn branches.

A hazel stool coppiced at the same time as the one in the picture above but which has been protected by a screen of hawthorn brash, this one has produced stems of over seven feet in height in one year. 

They also managed to erect a high seat and clear a vantage point to help with the culling of deer around Riddy Wood.

One of the banes of the woodland manager is the introduced grey squirrel which will strip bark from twigs and branches to line their dreys and even ring bark trees. Not only that buy grey squirrels also aggressively predate birds nests and are responsible for the theft of eggs and chicks from nesting birds. The students were able to do some ‘drey poking’ whereby the dreys of the hibernating squirrels are poked or shaken to bring down the squirrels and the squirrels are then shot.

A Squirrel Drey
By Rosser1954 (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Students after a successful squirrel hunt, can you see the Chinese Water deer hanging in the background ready for dinner?

As a group they were able to answer for five squirrels over the course of their two days in the woods.

While they were staying in Riddy Wood they were able to see Chinese Water Deer and Reeves Muntjac and we also managed to record footage of a range of wildlife moving around within feet of their camp site on a trail camera. Among them this stoat which gradually moved his rabbit pray from one woodpile to another over the course of a day and which may well be the same stoat who’s half-finished meal of woodpecker Richard found the other week.

Richard will be sharing more videos of the deer and other wildlife that he has filmed in Riddy Wood recently before too long. Check out his youtube channel for some excellent wildlife videos. 

The student also found a deer skull and despite the fact that it had obviously been laying in the woods for a long time they were able to identify it's species approximate age and sex, see if you can too;

One of the very first posts on the Bushcraft Education blog was about ageing deer from their teeth and if you want some clues check out that post here.

First correct answer giving species, sex and age (juvenile, young adult or old) in the comments wins a bow drill set.

Zero Tolerance - tools of the trade!

With Christmas being a season where we often indulge in good food we thought it would be a good time to teach you just how to make sure your rifle is shooting strait so you can put something tasty on the festive table.

Speaking of tasty things for the table keep your eyes peeled over the next few days for a game pate recipe and a report on the venison steak and kidney pie that Geoff accidentally made using the puff pastry his wife had set aside ready to make sausage rolls with.  

A hunting firearm is, of course, completely useless without a sighting system that will allow you to put a bullet precisely where you want it to achieve a humane kill. In simple terms, as a deer manager, I need to be able to hit a tennis ball at a 100 yards, every time and a golf ball is better!

Getting ready for a couple of zeroing shots on misty morning with my Browning X-bolt chambered in 6.5 x 55 mm

I'm sure that I could write a small book on the subject and I'm sure others have, so I'm going to keep this simple. I need the point of aim and the point of impact to coincide at my chosen range or at the very least, to have a known point of impact with reference to my aiming point. For my deer rifle, I have chosen to have my bullet strike the target one inch above my aiming point at 100 yards and that means that it's one and a half low at 200. So I can shoot at any range from 25 yards to 200 without having to worry too much about adjustments, the same point of aim at any of those ranges will have the bullet strike that same lethal, palm sized target area.

Adjusting sights to achieve this is called zeroing and it will be required when a new sight is fitted or if the existing one takes a knock or just drifts off under constant use and handling, a change of ammunition will also require a check to ensure zero is maintained.

Today of course, most people use a telescopic sight but the same principle existed in bygone days when open or 'iron sights' needed to do the same thing, deliver a bullet exactly where required to do the job. Almost 40 years ago,  I regularly shot at targets at 600 yards with open sights and people still do that at targets but hunting with a rifle at any range nowadays is almost invariably achieved with a telescopic sight.

Adjustable rear 'iron sights' on an old rifle, iron sights normally consist of a rear 'notch' and a front 'post' which must be aligned with the target. They are normally a permanent part of the firearm unlike a telescopic sight which can be removed.
"M1911 Hausse" by Bouterolle - Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

I am fastidious in attaching a 'scope, with screws tightened sequentially and in small increments at each turn so as not to have everything biased toward the first screw which you tightened so darned tight. Once it is firmly attached, you can secure the rifle and check that the scope and the bore are pointing at the same target, you can make adjustments even at this stage if you are confident enough and if you are inclined to, you can buy a small laser device to chamber like a bullet and that takes out some of the estimating out of the process.

Now there is no option but to fire a couple of rounds at a target after you have ensured the safety of the target area and it's back stop of course. I tend to use squared or good old graph paper to make the corrections easier to calculate and have a 1 inch 'bull' at its centre. For this process you can fire groups of 3 shots to establish a mean point of impact or you can fire single shots and use those for corrections.

My process would be to fire a shot and use the squares to establish that it was 'x' inches right of my required impact point and 'y' inches above (or below) my desired impact point. The adjustments on the sight will typically 'move' the impact point by a quarter of an inch (at a hundred yards) per click, so convert the required adjustment from inches to clicks, make that adjustment and fire again to see if you got it right first time or not, repeat the exercise until you get it 'spot on'.

Here I'm firing a zeroing shot from a prone position off a bipod, it's important when zeroing to do so from as stable as position a possible so as to take as much human error as possible out of the process. 

The acid test is then in the field and in the event that you miss or hit the target somewhere other than where you were aiming, you need to check zero and get it spot on, there can be very little tolerance to achieve what is required, we owe it to the target species to get this right.

Take care in the field!

MG

The Felling Fellow.

By N.E. Beckwith (NatGeoFound) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

I love trees and I love the woods, I've spent thousands of hours there, engaged in a variety of activities from walking to bird watching, camping to commercial felling.

I could write a modest book on the subject of felling trees and I'm sure that the forestry commission have got pamphlets, books and all sorts of training aids, even though I suspect that harvesting machines now fell a thousand trees for every one that is cut by a man with a chain saw.

And before we felled with chainsaws this was the only option;
"Felling snags on fire line around the Coquille CCC camp, Siskiyou National Forest (3226072285)" by OSU Special Collections & Archives : Commons - Felling snags on fire line around the Coquille CCC camp, Siskiyou National Forest Uploaded by russavia. Licensed under No restrictions via Wikimedia Commons.

My simple rules and suggestions for felling are very few and very simple:

1. If in doubt, don't!

2. Gravity always wins!

3. Death can be Fatal!

4. Get some training.

5. Get proper equipment, especially protective equipment (eyes, ears, hands, feet and legs) a wedge ( or 2), a sledge hammer and a turning bar / felling lever.

I've cut thousands of trees as a pro feller, the majority of which were in a plantation and these are often but not always, relatively simple. They are usually straight and as a consequence of being in a plantation are not encumbered with a multitude of side branches to catch up and roll the main trunk as it hits the ground or worse, that hold the main trunk way off the ground when it comes to rest, which makes for a dangerous clear up!

Compare the twisted and tangled deciduous trees in Riddy Wood .....

...with the straighter conifers in a plantation, while easier from a felling and timber perspective the plantations aren't so biodiverse.
Espresso Addict [CC BY-SA 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons  

Exceptions of course are 'edge trees' and plantations on a substantial slope. First the edge trees which do grow side branches, often asymmetrically toward the outside world where there is plenty of light. This asymmetry of course, puts the weight on one side and tips the balance (no pun intended) toward the heavy side and whilst you can fell at 90 degrees to the weighted side, you can't go beyond that (unless you have a gale blowing in the direction you wish to fell but one hazard at the time!)

You have to have a decent hinge, strong enough to hold the falling trunk to the stump but not so strong that it resists the initiating force to get the tree moving in the desired direction. 

"StateLibQld 1 89188 Two timber workers felling a tree on the Atherton Tableland, 1890-1900" by Item is held by John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland.. Licensed under Public Domain via Commons.These timber workers are starting their hinge higher up than I normally would on smaller trees but in this case they need to get above the huge buttresses on this tree to fell it neatly. This is another example of 'applied bushcraft' the skills that we would now consider recreational bushcraft are certainly being put to good effect here. Working all day with a chainsaw certainly isn't easy but this kind of massive scale felling with hand tools is in a whole other league. 

This initiating force can be a push or a pull and could be from a winch or a wedge, my preference is the good old fashioned wedge as I want everything precisely in my control and literally in my hands. If there is the slightest doubt as to the way it may go, you MUST have an escape route or better still 2. These must be clear paths that you can move along at warp speed without climbing, jumping or squeezing through gaps, because if that tree snaps off it's hinge, you have no control what so ever, gravity and wind now have it 100% and that escape route can be the difference between life and death! no doubt about it! So take some time to cut a track if needs be.

The beaver takes a slightly different approach to felling than we do, it works all the way around the tree until the remaining central wood fibers no longer support the weight of the trunk and gravity takes over, we need to be a bit more predictable and controlled than that.

Now this a blog post not 'war and peace' so I'm going to keep this brief and issue the warning that my comments should not be regarded as guidance or authoritative, just an account of my experiences which may or may not be useful or relevant. As most of the non routine felling jobs are unique in so many ways, the best preparation is a detailed risk assessment and then an assessment of any and all possible scenarios. In the case of a dangerous tree with a lot of rot and / or is hollow, you could easily spend more time in the assessment phase than in the the felling itself, this is where I start:

• What have you got to cut? I.e how big or bad is it
• Where is it now? Relevant to tracks, structures or trees that you want to preserve.
• Where do you want it to be when it drops? Ground position.
• Where is the worst possible place for it to go?
• Is the size, damage or weight distribution heavily influencing where it's going?
• Is there enough good wood to form a hinge?
• Are there any 'hang-ups' or significant fragile parts which could detach and drop during the fall or at any point in the felling process?
• Is this going to need a rope assist?
• Is the wood solid enough to take a wedge with any effect?
• Etc, etc, etc.......

Don't let that tree go anywhere that your head hasn't been already!

That old carpentry analogy "measure twice cut once" isn't enough, you may need to measure, assess and plan a lot more times than twice and it's worth it, you need to give it to gravity on your terms and not let gravity take it from you on his, that will always end badly!

It's possible to drop a tree all the way to the ground still attached to its hinge but often not, the butt may rise dramatically in the later stages of the fall, it may also back up or swing either way, dependent on which piece of the falling tree hits the ground first.

I hope that this paints a scary picture, it's meant to. In coming months we will try to capture some of the felling in Riddy Wood as we take down some dangerous and badly neglected trees and post them on the website, watch this space and that one and that one, because the tree could arrive in any of them if it goes badly.

Take care in the woods!

MG