The Woodland Ways team are highly regarded for their tracking knowledge and skills. Drawing on extensive UK fauna knowledge, coupled with training from some of the worlds best tracking authorities, you know that your course will be of the highest possible standards. The team tracks globally, from large game in South Africa (where we are assessed under the Cyber Tracker System- home of Cyber Tracker where other countries followed to set up the system), tracking with the Maasai in Kenya, through to discovering Lynx tracks in Europe, and more across the Middle East, Sahara and jungle. Not to mention close encounters with Bear and Wolf.
The Woodland Ways team are highly regarded for their tracking knowledge and skills. Drawing on extensive UK fauna knowledge, coupled with training from some of the worlds best tracking authorities, you know that your course will be of the highest possible standards. The team tracks globally, from large game in South Africa (where we are assessed under the Cyber Tracker System- home of Cyber Tracker where other countries followed to set up the system), tracking with the Maasai in Kenya, through to discovering Lynx tracks in Europe, and more across the Middle East, Sahara and jungle. Not to mention close encounters with Bear and Wolf.
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Friday
This course is suitable for professionals in the field, wildlife enthusiasts and complete beginners. With our unique down to earth, practical and realistic approach the Woodland Ways instructors will go beyond the classic realms of identifying tracks and signs, to give you a deeper understanding of animal behaviour within the UK and provide you with the opportunity to experience nature as close as you can get. We aim to give you the confidence to understand which animal has left a track or other sign, it's not all about foot prints and droppings!
Beginning on the Friday afternoon we will show you how to identify track traps, to understand at first hand your affect on your immediate surroundings, and understand the difference between animal and human senses and behaviour. On the Friday night we hold an evening sit spot where your instructor will discuss the behaviours witnessed.
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Saturday
On Saturday we will get up early for a dawn sit spot. We will work with you to develop your stalking techniques to allow you to move through the woodland silently get close to its wildlife. You will also learn about natural camouflage, interpreting the landscape to your advantage, and to develop your peripheral vision.
Following lunch we will provide you with an intense introduction to tracks and signs where we will not only discover identification techniques, but also how to understand gait patterns, compression shapes, action indicators, ageing footprints and signs, understand feeding habits, interpreting kill sites, and learn characteristic animal behaviour. The afternoon is then spent putting everything into practice where you will track with our instructors to get close hand experience until you are no longer a visitor to the woodland, but part of it. We will also set up a track trap to capture fresh sign of the woodland's inhabitants which we will examine the following day.
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Sunday
Following breakfast on the Sunday, and our morning sit spot, we come back together to look at how to interpret the language of birds. We will examine the tools and equipment of the trade including trail cams and animals calls, as well as recording and documenting tracks both with photos and taking casts.We will also return to our track trap to interpret the signs before the course finishes at midday.