If I'd have wanted to go on a wild goose chase, I'd have studied wild geese wouldn't I?!?!?!

The unusually large amounts of snow are hindering my fieldwork. Because I was packed off by my supervisors with a Citroen Berlingo, rather than the sexy Ford Ranger 4x4 I requested, we are unable to negociate the forest roads, which have a thick covering of snow. This means its impractical to get on with a lot of the work we should be getting on with. So instead I've decided to make the most of a bad situation and crack on anyway. How hard can a little snow be to walk through right??

Well after 6 hours of trudging through knee deep, and in places thigh deep, snow - I can tell you that is bloody hard! We were trying to find Face's (that's him below) den site today by homeing in on his radiocollar signal. We must have tramped about 9km through thick forest, debris strewn clear fell, marsh bog and heather moor, in a vain attempt to pick up a signal. But could we find one??? No.




So with great annoyance we stomped back to the van, which was parked at the very edge of the forest, feeling throroughly defeated. It was getting late and we were cold, tired and very hungry. Just as we were about to jump in, Richard decided to check one last time with the tracking gear to see if we could find a signal. And what do you know: the silly marten's only in completely the opposite direction to where we had been walking, in an entirely separate area of woodland a good couple of miles away across roads, habitations and farmland.

Grrrr. Bloody animals, they never read the script.