A Year in the Woods: The Diary of a Forest Ranger

by Colin Elford

  I notice when I let the dogs out of the kennel that the increasing air movement for some unknown reason seems to excite them both. With the wind up their tails they behave more wildly, taking pleasure in chasing and snapping at the extinguished hand-sized maple leaves that parachute down from a young tree in the garden. It is going to be a day of disobedience, I can see it.

  Entering the wood I check the direction of the wind, which I always do as a matter of routine. Sweeping behind me, then in an upward twist suddenly ending up in my face, it is an awkward if not impossible wind to stalk in. In the dark, with the rifle on my back, I make my way up the steep track leaning into the hill. This is my time, and I love it, free from people, just me in the woods. Closing my eyes for a short while and then opening them slowly helps to get them accustomed to the dark. I do this several times as I pass under more shadowy areas on the track but it does little to help me avoid the sticks that catch the toes of my boots, pushing the dry leaves forward. It makes an awful noise but at least the wind smothers some of the sound.

  Out of the shadows the familiar shape of the big old yew tree looms, battleship grey in the darkness, just over the crest of the hill. I sit at its feet, leaning back and tucking myself into the gnarly twisted bark, at last catching my breath. I look into the sky; the clouds are colonizing it, bullying and pushing the stars away, and a steady drizzle has started. At least my natural umbrella in the form of the canopy of the great tree is keeping me dry.

  The wind this morning is playing tricks, and occasionally a mini ground whirlwind sweeps low across my outstretched legs before picking up a few wet leaves and slamming them into the side of my face.

  At least the light is coming now, although very slowly; I strain my eyes at something white to my right that I’m sure wasn’t there when I sat down. A pair of ravens calls in the gloom, and I try unsuccessfully to pick them out through my binoculars in the poor light. I return to the white object. In bad light even common features look strange, and I can now see that what I thought was a stationary white deer is, in fact, a deer-shaped fresh chalk spill from an outlying badger hole. Incredibly, it’s such a convincing deer outline that if I stare at it long enough it appears to move.

  Closing my eyes I listen to the wakening birds and semi-doze for a few minutes, until the sound of a footfall on wet leaves wakes me from my slumber. The fallow doe almost steps on to me before changing its course and crossing to the other side of my huge yew. I hear her pause and stop directly behind me. The trunk separates us. What is she thinking? She can feel something isn’t right but doesn’t know what. For her, it is now down to pure raw instinct. Experience tells me to stay still. I can’t attempt to reach for the rifle as she is too close and would sense any movement, even in the ripples that make up the wind. When her decision is made, she leaves the lee of the tree in big pronking jumps. The rifle automatically finds my shoulder and the tree holds me firm and steady as I wait in hope that the rest of the herd might follow, but none do. Although I remain under the tree until the light has wiped away all the shadows, I see no more deer in the valley or on the hillside.

  The only other animal I see is a wild-eyed hare blown by the wind to the yew tree; it pauses to nip the top out of a small regen ash, its rain-drenched fur ragged in the wind. The wind forces it to move, and kicking its heels up it flashes the fluffy cream fur on the bottom of its feet.

  By now the wind is becoming frantic and the rain steady. It is time to creep along the high bank, checking the valley as I go. I leave a roe buck feeding and undisturbed in the valley – bucks being currently out of season, meaning they cannot be shot – just before two chocolate-coloured shapes catch my attention: there, on the edge of a young spruce crop swaying rhythmically to and fro in the wind, are two fallow does – just what I want for this winter doe cull.

  We spot each other at the same time, and like two snobbish old women they give me an uninterested glance, as though I am of no concern to them. As the cross-hairs find one of them, it turns away and fades into the background of swirling greenery, as if caught in the down draught of a helicopter. The gale has truly arrived.

  My early-morning stalk is more exciting than usual today. My plan is to make it to a high seat that overlooks an opening in a large bramble-covered glade and from which there are interesting views across to the field edges. I set off early, giving myself plenty of time to get to the seat and to wait for any passing fallow. In the half-light I pick my route through a compartment of tall Douglas fir and mature larch. Many branches of various sizes have been ripped from the trees’ limbs high in the tops during the night and now lie scattered about, acting as noise traps, warning every living creature that a human is in the woods. It is almost impossible to move quietly; with every step I manage to tread on a dry stick, or become ensnared in a lush branch of Douglas needles. Reaching a point when I’ve almost lost patience, I suddenly find myself walking at nearly normal speed and start to swagger. Then I snap another twig and have to lean against a tree, cussing, frustrated at my progress.

  I’m fighting a battle with time today as daylight is keen to appear, forcing me to slow my pace in the oncoming light. I shoulder my rifle and with a slow urgency pick my route through the stick minefield. The going gets better as I reach an area of lush damp moss. It is easy to move effortlessly and silently over such ground. The light peeks through the regimented trunks of the Douglas, as rich reds and several shades of yellow emerge on the ground, rising slowly between the stark stems in shafts of colour, of life – the emergence of a new dawn.

  Your senses are more acute when you’re in hunting mode, and with the first rays of sun come the earthy smells of the forest: heat versus damp on the decaying fern fronds; the peaty odour of leaf-mould. And all around, unseen to all but me, a light steam rises. I move gingerly now, shooting sticks in hand, ready for a possible shot.

  I glance down to avoid a moss-covered branch, and when I look up I become aware of a small object moving fast and dropping swiftly from my eye level towards my feet. What is it? My first reaction is to swipe at it with my sticks, but its speed takes me completely by surprise. I have no time to swipe, or even to move, and merely let out a frightened gasp, which sounds as stupid as I feel, as the sparrowhawk realizes its mistake and veers from my feet in a crescent-shape swoop upwards towards my face. As the bird rises we are almost eye to eye at one point. I notice that, although I am frozen solid to the ground, my breathing has quickened as though I’ve been running or just seen a ghost.

  The whole episode lasts only seconds, but I am left in a daze and puzzled. What made it stoop at my feet? I ponder on the question for some time and come to the conclusion – maybe not the right one but good enough for me – that the bird was inexperienced, and in poor shadowy light it mistook my slow-moving feet for prey and attempted an attack. Possibly it was the low shafts of early light that confused it, for it was only in mid-swoop that the sparrowhawk realized its error. I guess, like the other mysteries in the woods, I will never really know the answer. Such is nature.

  Stalking on foot this afternoon in snow, I feel the chill cutting through my clothes and sense it is going to be bitter tonight. The wind-blasted snow on the windward side of the beech trunks is already frozen solid, a sign of things to come. I open the decrepit oak wicket gate that has been here as long as I can remember, it too encased in its own veneer of ice. Freeze-dried leaves of blackthorn rattle alongside me in a stinging easterly wind. Downtrodden russet bracken hampers my every footstep.

  Stopping in mid-stride I lean against the nearest tree and examine my route. As I pause, a tiny object hops across the snow and disappears in a heap of decaying branches that the sun temporarily part-thawed earlier in the day, leaving them exposed and isolated, an oasis of dark in an expanse of white. The frost has the upper hand in a landscape like this. Whatever it was I saw is small and fast, a minute black phantom, which I know instinctively is no bird.

  Among the snow-splattered branches miniature cascades of dry sn
ow fall with the movement of the unseen creature. Mounds of snow radiate away from the twig heap, creating a shallow tunnel just under the surface of the snow, similar to the sort a mole would make while worm-hunting in dry weather.

  I am a lone spectator in this icy waste until suddenly a mouse explodes on to the white plain from under the surface. It is a hazardous place to be and the mouse knows it, scurrying at lightning speed across the crusty surface, then accelerating to almost a blur. A head appears from the hole in the snow where the mouse has come out – my phantom. Dressed in his winter coat, fit for any king or queen, is a stoat, pure white except for his pitch-black tail – the object that had first caught my eye. The snakelike head glances in every direction of the compass, before springing from the hole, scenting the mouse and starting the unrelenting hunt of its prey.

  To see a white stoat, or ermine, in this part of the country is something quite rare. I often see them in their summer coats of russet brown and have even seen ones of mixed colour, brown and white, but the sight of that pure ermine bounding from side to side, its black tip disappearing down a hole in a sea of white, will be a memory I shall treasure.

  It’s amazing what you see if you make the effort to get up early and go out into the woods.

  This morning, while I’m dragging a fallow buck fawn to the truck, a fox crosses my path carrying a massive black rabbit. Such an oversized prize reminds me of when I once saw a petite vixen carrying a huge cock pheasant in its mouth. The fox looked so small and the bird so large that the vixen’s struggle to manoeuvre her prey over an assault course of restricting woodland debris looked oddly comical. I managed to get so close to her that I could hear her sniffing and snuffling, blowing air through her nose in an attempt to clear the mass of feathers that was obstructing her limited vision. The resolve of this animal in her uphill challenge was unrelenting and an inspiration to me.

  Animals, although often referred to as dumb, are, when fully appreciated, far from it. I believe that they act and behave on a different plane to us humans, and have evolved ways of coping with problems in life that should be admired and, in many cases, mirrored by us.

  Fallow do not appear tonight, though when I leave the wood my headlights pick out a group moving to and from the neighbour’s ground. I will have to admit defeat and see if the forester will temporarily fence. The pattern of behaviour has changed, the deer becoming increasingly nocturnal and leaving the area well before light to return to the safety of the neighbouring land.

  I finally reach the high seat in the dark. The weather looks unpromising, and sudden gusts rock the seat as though it’s a ship on the sea, swirling me around in circles. Above me black clouds pass, making smokers’ rings across the face of the moon. Occasionally a shaft of light crests the rim of a cloud, emerging into the dark like angel’s wings. Undaunted, the moon looks down as the maelstrom of cloud gathers and ripples, only to tumble, briefly swiping at her face before being driven on by an uncontrollable wind. Throughout, her dignity is ever-present; unmovable she remains shrouded in a halo of brightness and light.

  At my level, on the seat, the weather is no less unforgiving; sudden gusts grab the pole-sized spruce that I am attached to, sending the top into a pirouetting spiral. Glassing the ground from my twisting eyrie, I can pick out nothing moving in the gloom around me. Half closing my eyes and leaning back into the seat, I think back to the warmth of my bed; daylight is a long time coming today. I can only endure the wait, shrug from within and shiver. I pull the rifle in closer to my groin, as if it could lend me warmth.

  With nothing happening on the ground I soon lose interest, my eyes instinctively searching the forest roof above me instead. Under a partially dawning sky the squirrels are already active high in the tops of the beech trees, seeking out the large buds, scouring the canopy, traversing silhouettes in a world of tempest and wind-hurled leaves.

  Slowly the dark releases its hold, black turning unnoticed to grey – fallow time!

  My activity in the seat has attracted the attention of one of my nocturnal neighbours. As I glance once more to ground level, a small mixed group of fallow approach from behind. Standing stock-still and alert, the lead doe scans me. I dare not move. The sound of waking birds becomes enhanced. My body is a coiled spring. My mind races through several scenarios, some reminding me of the consequences of making a stupid, rushed decision, such as the one where the doe leads the herd in a sudden dash as I move towards my rifle; or the one where they walk off, backsides facing me, so that I am unable to take the shot no matter how close they are to me. But my favourite, and the one that plays out, is the timed decision to allow her to lose interest in me, and then, as the herd moves away past the seat, to slowly pull the rifle to my shoulder, select a victim, call out, ‘Morning!’ to stop them, and then carefully squeeze the trigger.

  By the time I drag my cull up to the truck, the early-morning start is already forgotten.

  Births and deaths go on all the time in the forest, mostly unseen. When you witness one such event it leaves you feeling not only lucky but also privileged to have seen it. Though being in the woods can be frustrating, it’s never boring as there’s always something of interest to watch, observe and learn from.

  This morning holds one such event for me. I am sitting in the high seat in the larch trees, void now of most of their russet-yellow tinged needles. In front of the seat is a small open area of bramble and snow-swept bracken. When time allows I like to get this area cut on a yearly cycle to help with deer control and also to save the ground flora from scrub invasion.

  After glassing around the glade for what seems like the hundredth time, my attention is taken by the large numbers of woodpigeon that have alighted around the seat, high above me in the stark, bare branches. The wind sways these plump, dumpy birds up and down until a nervous neighbour, for whatever reason, panics the rest into flight with an enormous amount of wing noise. Several of the birds return after climbing high into the sky and making one or two whip cracks with their wings in a form of display. One bird lands just behind a trunk of larch so that I am shielded from its vision. I take a closer look at it.

  Pigeons, like several common British birds, are easily overlooked almost to the point of being taken for granted. From a distance they appear grey, like nothing special, but close up they abound with colour – sheens of blue, green and white flecks, and chests of salmon pink.

  I am wrapped up in the pigeons when a squeak below the seat catches my attention. I look down to see a mouse scrabble at lightning speed across a dead branch that had been felled and left to rot, followed by another, then another, all clambering over the entanglement of dead branches. More and more mice leave the woodpile, diving off and disappearing into the dense undergrowth. Something is approaching, alarming them; it must be close now as mice are throwing themselves off the structure of sticks and plummeting to the ground.

  The scene reminds me of an African plain in miniature, filled with panicking wildebeest and zebra, the predatory lion soon appearing in the shape of a tiny weasel. The pocket-sized lion is not to be sidetracked and pursues the smell of the mice, moving so fast that it appears to skim over the branches like a tanned hovercraft, hoovering up the scent. I watch in envy at its endless energy as it plunges again to the ground, then reappears on the branches just as quickly. On its third descent into the maze of sticks, I hear, but can’t see, a skirmish taking place below a commotion of sharp shrill squeaks. It does not seem possible that the weasel can have got back on to the sticks without me noticing it, but it is no apparition that sits triumphant on the stick pile with a mouse dangling from its mouth.

  We humans have a saying when we lose a loved one: life goes on. And sure enough, just like us, as I sit perched in my seat up high like a god looking down on his subjects, one by one, over the course of the morning, the inhabitants of the woodpile return to their stick kingdom to carry on with the struggle that is life.

  The nocturnal phone call wakes me with a start and leaves me
with a headache for the rest of the day. I must sound pretty stupid on the phone as I was well into a deep sleep when it rang.

  I listen as best as I can, assuring the caller with a grunt that I am the stalker for that area. The police woman on the other end sounds as though she’s in a hurry, rushing through the limited information that she passes on to me, everything said in such haste that I’m unable to absorb it fully. Well before I can question her she is gone, and I am left holding the receiver in the dark wondering why I ever offered to help with road-traffic accidents involving deer.

  It’s strange, but the more I try to get up quietly without waking the rest of the household, the worse it is; the locks on the gun cabinet open almost mischievously, with a rebellious attitude, breaking the silence with a metallic clunk. Drunk with sleep, I stagger in the dark, catching my clothes on well-known door handles as I blunder around the house looking for the equipment that I will need.

  The cold outside soon wakes me up, and the ice on the road keeps me alert. The information was vague; I like as much detail as possible when I get called to an RTA. The police car is at the scene, its blue lights flashing, and I breathe a sigh of relief as I approach it. First, I have found the right place, and second, it’s easier to do the job with an extra pair of hands. Folks who have been involved in an accident and have hit a deer can turn on you sometimes if you have to put it out of its misery, so it’s always reassuring to have an officer on the scene. As I pull up behind the police car, though, I am flabbergasted when it lets out its siren as a sign of recognition and then drives off. With the bright flashing light gone, I am once more plunged into the world of dark alone.