Saturday, 25 August 2012

Summer camping in the woods

Well, the British Summer has been wetter than usual, but this week we managed to get a couple of days off to coincide with some sunshine, and went to camp in the woods for a night...

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This was the first time we'd both been camping there since I got a new phone, so we took advantage of it to set up a solar-powered woodland wifi hotspot, so Tracy could use her ipod and keep up to date on facebook!
DSC_4355 solar wifi hotspot in the woods

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We had a great dinner, cooked mostly on the BBQ:
DSC_4358 BBQ in the woods

Using our own charcoal of course
DSC_4359 home-made charcoal

Here's the end result, including sweetcorn, chicken kebabs and halloumi cheese!
DSC_4360 Dinner in the woods

Of course, for taking photos of food I should really be using a new iPhone 5... :-)

After dinner we settled down around the fire for the evening...
DSC_4363 camp fire

As usual on a first night sleeping in the woods, we woke up early. As it was sunny, I wandered around getting some photos of the sun coming up...
DSC_4365 Early morning in the woods

DSC_4372 Early morning in the woods

DSC_4373 Early morning in the woods

DSC_4377 Early morning in the woods

DSC_4383 Early morning in the woods

DSC_4388 Early morning in the woods

Later in the morning we went to watch the wildlife. There were several flocks of a variety of small birds moving through the wood, though it's hard to get photos of them at this time of year, due to the leaves on the trees. I managed to catch this Robin briefly:
DSC_4403 Robin

and then got several of a Treecreeper preening:
DSC_4435 Treecreeper

DSC_4441 Treecreeper

DSC_4440  Treecreeper

DSC_4442 Treecreeper

I also got these pictures, which at first I had thought were of the treecreeper too, but on closer examination I think they might be something else, though I'm not sure what...
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Lots of insects around too, like this Red Admiral butterfly:
DSC_4464 Red Admiral butterfly

A Small White:
DSC_4473 SMall White butterfly

A Silver Y moth (thanks to Heather for the ID)
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Loads of dragonflies:
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and lots of bumble bees too:
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When we were packing up the tent, we also rescued this cricket(?) from getting squashed:
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and I found this weird insect, which looks like a bit of algae off a tree, trying to eat me:
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And finally, insects are of course food for spiders...
DSC_4466 Spider catching a fly in its web

Mike

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