Bowhunting journal
A quiet journal about the art and craft of hunting, and the dialogue with nature — one story at a time.
Wednesday evening, April 29, 2026. Another hunting weekend is approaching. The tools of independence, freedom, and the experience of nature are gathering in the car. On the sixth, seventh, eighth trip I somehow manage to cram everything I’ve judged important and useful into the car. Gear, clothing, equipment, and everything else. Because, as we know,…
Last year’s piglets, now grown into young hogs, have gotten used to my motion-activated moonlight lamp’s activity after many months.
Now that the trees and bushes have nicely leafed out, the lush undergrowth is starting to sprout up, you can see how nicely my feeder blends into the landscape. After the disturbance caused by the antler collectors, life has nicely returned to the wallow and to my feeder as well. It’s interesting to see that…
The silver poplar’s second life on the hunting ground A few weeks ago a windstorm swept through the area. The damage was dramatic: one of the larger, heavily one-sided silver poplars snapped in two. A trunk over 80 cm near the base, still over 60 cm in diameter above the break — this was no…
The beautiful early-spring weather has brought the local red stags back for bathing, wallowing, and cooling off . . .
The First Adventure – Some Scientific Reflections on the Meeting Between a Wild Piglet and the World, from the Perspective of Wildlife Biology, Forestry, and Game Management I. The Beginning – Ethological and Ecological Context The reproductive biology of the wild boar (Sus scrofa L.) follows a distinctive rhythm within the annual cycle of European…
After more than two months, “life” has returned to a tiny corner of the forest. Images kept arriving all night long from the deployed cameras. The most traffic was at the feeder, where — since it was set up, after more than two months of complete silence — the greenish glow of the motion-sensor “moonlight”…
On Saturday, in glorious early-spring weather, the following tasks were on the agenda: tank inspection and refilling, setting up physical protection for the deployed Zeiss Secacam 7 cameras (a locked metal housing), and checking the stability of the two permanently deployed Summit Viper Pro SD stands. In the past there was almost always some small…
A bit long, but a very good analysis that may shed light on the reasons behind many mysteriously unsuccessful stand hunts . . . FACTORS DETERMINING THE PERCEPTION ZONE OF FOREST BIG GAME AND FURRED PREDATORS A multidisciplinary analysis integrating physiology, biophysics, microclimatology and behavioral ecology 1. INTRODUCTION AND THE SCIENTIFIC FRAMING OF THE PROBLEM…
The same event from two camera angles. You can clearly see the cameras keeping an eye on each other "out of the corner of their eye" 🙂