Natural Bushcraft - The True Spirit of Bushcraft

Posted by Ashley Cawley

On Monday I took my younger brother Joe out for a cup of tea in the woods. There's nothing Joe likes more than "firing-up and having a brew in the woods" as he puts it. And I certainly find it's the best place to chill you out. 

Whilst walking to Carnanton Woods in St Mawgan, Joe spotted his first ever wild-deer, it was nibbling away on some blackberries. We were some distance away but with my zoom lens I managed to get a photo, just before Joe scared it away!

(Click any of the photos for a photo slideshow of the day)

After we found a suitable spot we were ready to give our new kettle a go, (the Optimus Terra Kettle that Matt had given to me in a previous blog-post) and I thought I would give my fold-out stove a go seeing as it hadn't been used in a long while.

Whilst we waited for the kettle to boil we met a lovely old chap called Bob, who lived and worked around the wood. We had a good old yarn and I hope to catch up with him again. He even offered that I could shoot the deer in the wood, but I said to him I'd just piss them off with my .22 air rifle.

Tea was ready!

Posted by Ashley Cawley

Off to Gluvian Farm I went, in search of this big black cat. Greeted by Mike Sterling he gave me the low-down on what and where they had seen these cats. Right from the farm-shop door you could look across the valley onto two sloping fields, as Mike pointed to show me where they had seen the cats we instantly saw a dog sized animal prowling amoungst the grass, we couldn't believe it, typical my camera is still in the car! Mike quickly grabbed a pair of binoculars and we took a gander; it's a fox!

Mike explained to me that numerous people had seen the cats recently, both through binoculars, magnified through a rifle scope and not just seeing 1 but 2 cats together! Across the valley where the cats had been spotted wasn't Gluvian Farm land, but Mike had already got us permission from the land-owner to take a stroll and look for this mysterious "Mawgan beast".

I had with me; my video-camera and a quick reference guide I put together on big-cat tracks, which is avaliable to download on the right:

And Mike had his trusty shotgun, just in case

Primarily I was looking for any unusal tracks, scat or kills. I wasn't realy expecting to have a sighting on the first outing and unfortunately it was a dry summers day (making tracking a little trickier). I didn't find any interesting signs, just a few signs of fox, sheep & rabbit.

The time we spent on the hill-side was short and what I would like to do next time is to be more thourough and spend a lot more time up there. I have yet to speak to the land-owner and secure access for myself, I will contact him soon and hopefully I'll be able to spend a lot more time up there looking.

Armed with my camera, I would be tickled just to get some photos of unusal tracks etc. let alone a shot of a big cat itself 

I have been doing some research into local sightings of this black cat (around St Mawgan / Mawgan-Porth) and have found that there is a history of sightings throughout the area, from what I've heard so far these sightings cover the past 12 years, with plenty of people who have seen it or know of people who have seen it. Even RAF officials have gone on record as seeing the beast on the RAF Base / Airfield.

Has anyone else out there had a big-cat sighting or found an unusal track or kill? Let me know in the comments...

Posted by Ashley Cawley

It all started when I picked up our local newspaper in our post-office, noticing on the frontpage: Alert as big cats are seen in field! and the first paragraph read: "TWO BIG cats have been sighted in a field near St Mawgan. Observers spotted the animals on two separate occasions in a field containing sheep..." I found this news quite exciting as I read on to discover the people who had seen the cats were my local trusty farm-shop (Gluvian Organics) , just a mile away from where I stood!

These are people I trust and so close to home I had to investigate! I had a chat with one of the family who kindly invited me down to show me the spot where they had spotted the big black cats. Excited at the prospect of some interesting tracking and photo opportunities I put in a little research.

Obviously people have mixed feelings as to whether these "beasts" (or exotic/alien cats) actually exist at all in the wilds of Britain, this questionability of the general public comes from the "lack of proof" or information that people know about wild UK Big Cats.

I mean most people wouldn't be happy until someone shot one would they? - "How come a big cat has never been shot or captured in Britain?" Well take this question beyond the conversation in the pub and do some research and you will find there has infact been more than one or two big cats killed in Britain!

- 1991 - A Lynx was shot dead in Norfolk by a Devon Farmer

- 1989 - In Shropshire a Jungle Cat was fatally injured in a road crash

- 1988 - In Devon a Leopard Cat was shot

- 1988 - In Hampshire a Swamp Cat was killed crossing a road

- 1987 - On the Isle of Wight a Leopard Cat was shot

(Source: UK Big Cats)

"the fact that these cats were killed, photographed, examined and recorded is still not proof to most people as they are not aware of it ever happening."

I continued to research into to big-cat evidence and then comparing big-cat tracks to what I already knew, I put together this document as a handy reference on the day I would be exploring the site:

The following morning armed with my camera and tracks I set off for Gluvian Farm Shop to try and track down this big cat. I will post up soon about how it went.

In the meantime take a look at this quick track reference guide I put together (Click the image on the right to download PDF):

And for more information on UK Big Cats visit: http://www.ukbigcats.co.uk/history.asp