We’ve just spent the last couple of weeks covering a honking amount of mileage driving around Britain. The entire trip was a spontaneous idea but turned out pretty damned good. The first leg was from North East Slovakia to Rzeszow airport in Poland, where we flew via Ryan Air to East Midlands in the UK, […]

If it walks, crawls, flies or slithers then chances are I’ve got one somewhere on my property. The old log cabin (budka) at the end of my garden is home to quite a few bats. This one is roosting from one of the multiple wasp nests we have about the place. There’s an immense wasp […]

It’s  a very long way to Peljesac, Croatia, and it’s an even longer way back… This summer holiday we rented a place on the sea in a remote area of the southern Peljesac peninsula (6kms to the nearest basic shop – that’s remote). As usual we drove south through Slovakia, then went from the East […]

This evening I’m a happy man as I finally managed to photograph the annoyingly elusive black woodpecker (Dryocopus martius). These birds, along with the golden oriole I photographed earlier this year, have been tauting me for decades. Similarly, neither species of bird seems to sit still long enough  to be photographed. They’re crap photos I […]

Today I went to check on the house and got to drive through some pretty thick snow. Vlochka, my Discovery, really has her use sometimes. On the way home I spotted a Ural owl just sitting on a branch about twenty feet from the road. For once, the sky was vaguely blue and the bright […]

This issue features one of my true horror stories from the forest – White Out – plus my photo of wolf tracks in the snow is on the cover. Order yourself a copy or sign up for a subscription here – The Bushcraft Magazine. Bushcraft Magazine is suited for both beginners and experts and covers […]

I really thought we’d get away with a mild winter this year and thus didn’t bother switching off my water. After seeing this week’s forecast, with temperatures dropping below minus 20, we headed out to the house to switch everything off and drain the pipes. It never saves everything – there’s always the odd tap […]

We spent the Christmas/New Year holidays at the house. When we arrived the inside temperature was 3 degrees Centigrade but slowly, and with a great deal of wood burning, we managed to get it up to a livable temperature. Unfortunately, we didn’t have the extreme winter like we did last year- we only had snow […]

This photo carries such enormous weight and induces a realization which could easily be dismissed as anthropomorphisation. But it isn’t. They’re wild animals. However, the event surrounding the photograph kept me awake all night thinking about it with a deep sadness and an attempt at understanding. We’d been on our evening walk when we encountered […]

It’s that time of year again when the valley in which my house is located resounds with the baying of rutting stags, day and night. This year there are quite a few of them. It’s amazing to be in the middle of a challenge and to watch these giant beasts screaming at each other. One […]