Winter Tracking

   As the winter season settles in and we see the days getting darker and colder the time for going outside to immerse yourself in the wonders of nature are never better. Now is the time to practise your five minute fire and build your debris hut that will keep you warm during the snowy windy nights.  Once you have your fist sized fire warming your cup of tea, you look around the icy landscape and notice little footprints in the snow.

   The art of tracking is a skill that can take decades to master but with just a few hours spent following an animal trail you can learn a lot about the daily routine of some of Ireland’s four legged friends.  During our Advanced Bushcraft course we head out to the local beach to learn the basics of tracking. The strand is the perfect place for the beginner tracker.

   At the beach one will find hundreds of tracks left by dogs walking the beach. Look for a single set of tracks and see if you can follow it through the maze of other dog tracks. How many can you find in a row? Twenty? One Hundred?

   The next skill to learn is to anticipate what the dog was doing by looking at the last track. Is that track pushed forward with sand spraying in the direction of travel? That would indicate that the animal was slowing down. You can expect to find the next track a lot closer to this track than normal.

   Another skill is to see if you can determine if a track is a dog or cat track. Both have four toes. The dog track is longer and narrower with distinctive toenail prints. The cat track is shorter and wider with no nails showing.

   The more time that you spend out in the woods following animal trails the better tracker you will become. More information can be found at www.ipna.ie.