Yesterday’s visit was mainly to collect some logs for future woodworking projects for my pal Phil and I. One of my woodland neighbours had cut several ash trees down and left them at the side of the main track. I know the guy will probably just leave them there to rot eventually. There were some good pieces that would split down to make legs for stools etc so I asked permission to take a few. So the day started with some log forageing.

I checked the blackbird nest that had the young chicks on my birthday visit. It was empty. They fledge around thirteen to fourteen days so hopefully they made it. The nest entrance was quite open so I piled more logs in front to conceal it better in case the blackbirds lay more eggs. Last year the second clutch didn’t make it, probably predated by a grey squirrel or larger bird like a Jay.

I had a few small jobs to do so I set Phil the task of taking a walk around to see which bird nest boxes were showing signs of activity. Most of them were. Phil has a good eye for observation and had also found another blackbird nest on top of a pile of logs covered by a tarp. There were four eggs in it.

He spotted another tiny nest between logs in some crates. It was one of the loveliest I have seen. Dried grass lined with soft white feathers. There were no eggs in it yet and we don’t know what species made it, possibly a wren. Hope there are eggs or chicks there next time I go which will be in about two weeks time. The photo is not very clear but this is it.

I received a new cooking pot for my birthday. I needed something bigger than the Zebra billy can I have been using. This is the 1.8L Pathfinder bush pot, a stainless steel pot based on the Mors Kochanski pot. (Mors is the grand daddy of bushcraft and designed a similar pot way back in time). I christened it by making cowboy coffee.

I wanted to try another recipe from my book The Wilderness Cookbook. It was pizzas cooked in a pan. The cast iron skillets would be great for this. I also wanted to do a bit of wild food identification and foraging with Phil. Some of it to go on the pizzas and some for a small salad. We found most of it along the edges of my tracks – wild garlic, jack by the hedge, wood sorrel, dandelion, wood bittercress and chickweed. Phil had prepared a dressing for the salad but in retrospect, I would have preferred to eat it without, the balsamic vinegar drowned out the subtle flavours.

We prepared the sauce topping in the new bush pot which consisted of chopped onion, wild garlic leaves and tomatoes, sweated down first, then added passata, tomato puree, dried italian herbs, salt and pepper. Meanwhile we had mixed up a packet of pizza dough and cooked it both sides in the skillets. Finally we added our sauce, grated edam cheese and wild garlic flowers to the top, cooked it a while longer till the cheese melted. Delicious.

Once again the day flew by and after we cleared up, sorted the logs and had a nature walk, it was time to go.