I have just returned from another two wild food courses which I held over the weekend. Both went well, but as a note of interest, quite a lot of the trees that we looked at seem to be in bad shape this year. I think mainly down to various mining insects that have caused the leaves to perish, especially horse chestnut.
The berries from the Elder are now on their way out, and in some places are already ripe and ready for picking. The hedge woundwort is starting to retreat and the hogweed is beginning to die back, all early signs of autumn. The thistles are producing good amounts of seed, so I will undoubtedly be gathering some of this to use as tinder in the next few weeks for next year’s courses.
It’s due to rain for the most part of next week, this equates to about 98% of this year’s courses being wet! I don’t mind really, but some of the students may.
On yesterday’s course there was a robin that was so tame, he actually perched temporarily on one of my student’s shoulders. The robin has become used to me walking around and teaching on this particular patch and he will sit on my feet and even feed from my hand if I happen to have something to his taste. Below you will find a picture of him taken when I was doing some work with the BBC last Christmas time. He’s certainly a little character.
I noted lots of gatekeeper butterflies today, and even more grasshoppers. I expect to see some grass snakes soon when I’m holding some night time bushcraft courses later this year, but so far there have been very few reported. Maybe I will be lucky and spot some on a photography course I’m holding for a charity later this month.
I will leave you with Mr Robin for now and post again shortly.
Catch you on the trail
Kris
