Sit spots, sometimes called still hunting, are a great way to get to see wildlife. So here are a few hints and tips around sit spots. We talk about and practice sit spots on our 1 Day Trapping Course and our 5 Day IOL Bushcraft Competency Diploma course. You can see loads of photos from those courses, […]
Tracking isn’t just about finding the tracks that an animal leaves behind, it’s also about the other clues that they leave that can inform us of their presence. These clues are often refereed to as ‘sign’. Here I’ll briefly describe some of those different types of animal sign. Scat Scat is the term used in […]
The table below shows the number of toes for common mammal species in the British Isles. The list includes plantigrades and digitigrades but not ungulates. Take a look at this post for more detail on different methods of locomotion in mammals. Species Fore foot Hind foot Badgers 5 5 Hedgehogs 5 5 Mice 4 5 […]
Recently whilst wandering through our beautiful ancient woodland I spotted a couple of badger latrines. This is great, it means that badgers are around. So I put together this short video to show you what a badger latrine looks like (warning – there’s a close up!) and why they dig them. We talk about and […]
What do we mean by ‘gaits’? According to Wikipedia, “Gait is the pattern of movement of the limbs of animals, including humans, during locomotion over a solid substrate.” Understanding these different patterns will inform us of how quickly the animal is moving, so a useful skill in tracking and trailing. You might want to take […]
When we look at a track, what we’re looking at is the imprint made by the sole of the foot; this is called ‘hollow relief’. There are 3 main foot types within mammals, you might want to take a look at this post to get a better understanding of those different foot types. The picture […]
