Wild Boar in Portugal

I am off to Portugal to track on Thursday for a week. I was there last year for two weeks. When I was there I saw the tracks of a wild boar and I started to follow the trail. After a while I saw the boar rooting under a tree and I decided to stalk closer. The adrenalin was pumping and I was being sucked in closer. When I was about 25 yards away I saw the face, it was a sow and she had two youngsters with her. They still had not seen me so I stayed to watch but was not willing to get closer as I was not armed. Once they saw me she charged towards me for a couple of seconds and then changed angle and ran off into the bushes. Those piercing eyes!!!! Those eyes were burned into my retina, I saw them in my sleep for a few days afterwards and a year later can still remember them clearly. The wild boar is an ancient symbol in Scotland of courage and power in battle. Here is a carving done in the pictish style:


When I go to Portugal this week I will be doing tactical tracking. This is basically tracking an armed fugitive in lots of scenarios with arrest procedures. This will be my second week in two years training upon this aspect of tracking. Most of the instructors who work with Shadowhawk ( see sidebar links) specialise in tracking animals; I love to track people and would do this for a living if ever the opportunity arose. Last year I was training with a Royal Marine and this year there will be some Portuguese Police. I can do the tracking fairly well in the arid environment and will be challenged this year by focusing on control of the tracking team. last year I spent a lot of time as lead tracker and flanker. This year I hope to learn some controler skills.

Recognition by feather

I have been away for a week working as an instructor with Shadowhawk Tracking School. This was an intermediate and advanced course. This tracking included animal tracking and man tracking during the day and night. Yes it is possible to track at night with the correct equipment. An internationally recognised symbol of the tracker is that of a feather. This feather can only be given to you by a master tracker and can only be earned not bought. It symbolises the heritage of teaching passed on from one tracking generation to the next. This is respect for the teaching not veneration of previous trackers. It is not ancestor worship; it is closer to a rite of passage like a bar mitzva. So around the world other trackers will see me as a tracker not as a wannabe enthusiast. What is fantastic to me is knowing that I am the first and only person in Scotland to achieve this level of tracking. There are a handfull of others in the rest of the UK. This feather took the form of a silver pendant rather than an actual eagle feather.


A close up shows the arrow that is the symbol of Shadowhawk Tracking School. It has cost me a lot of time and effort to achieve this and I am well chuffed. I hope to be in a position in a few years where I can spend a lot more time tracking; possibly earning a living from it.