Following animal tracks is one of those outdoor skills that changes how you see the landscape. A muddy path that first appears empty may contain a trail of footprints, tiny marks from claws, disturbed leaves and other clues that reveal which animals have passed through….
The sea can look calm from a distance while hiding powerful currents, changing conditions and waves that behave very differently from one another. Learning to observe the waves helps you to understand what the water is doing and recognise when a stretch of coast may…
Deep mud can be far more dangerous than it looks. What appears to be a shallow muddy patch may conceal soft ground, deep hollows or waterlogged material that makes movement difficult. Once your feet or legs become trapped, struggling can make the situation worse. This…
After a spell of strong autumn winds, woodland can look perfectly normal from the path while hiding dangerous damage overhead. A widow-maker is a term used for a dead or broken branch, or sometimes a damaged tree, that could fall without warning. Your challenge is…
Finding a snake in your tent would be an unexpected surprise, especially if you discovered it while reaching for your sleeping bag or boots. The important thing is not to panic or try to handle it. Snakes generally want to avoid people, and giving one…
It can be tempting to offer food to a robin, feed a duck or leave a little something for an animal you spot while exploring outdoors. However, food that seems harmless to us can cause problems for wildlife, from encouraging animals to approach people to…
Long before modern synthetic dyes became widely available, people used plants and other natural materials to colour cloth, yarn and everyday objects. Different materials can produce surprising colours, from soft yellows and browns to pinks and purples, depending on the material, the fibre and how…
Bats are easy to overlook during the day. While they may be active around woodland edges at dusk, they spend much of the day resting in sheltered places, including tree cavities, cracks, loose bark and other natural spaces. Learning to recognise a possible roost is…
Fog and mist can change a familiar woodland surprisingly quickly. Paths that were easy to follow a few minutes earlier may become harder to recognise, distant landmarks can disappear, and it becomes more difficult to judge how far away things are. Even a woodland you…
Watching wildlife in woodland takes more patience than many people really expect. You might spend twenty minutes standing quietly and see nothing more than a robin, then notice a squirrel moving through the branches as soon as you stop looking for it. The secret is…
After a spell of rain, a woodland floor can look as though every twig and branch is too wet to burn. Yet not all wood gets wet at the same rate. Some material stays sheltered beneath dense foliage, while the inside of a dead branch…
After a spell of heavy rain, some parts of the ground dry quickly while others remain muddy for days. You can often predict where the water will collect before the rain even starts, simply by looking at the shape of the land, the soil and…
