Last Saturday I spent the morning in London as a guest on BBC Radio 4′s Excess Baggage. In the evening  I led a group on a night walk. The conditions were perfect. We watched as blue turned to orange. Then as the orange faded to dark blue and black we were treated as Arcturus, Deneb, Altair, Vega, Capella and others began to appear. Lurking luminously between the silhouetted branches of a two hawthorns there was a bright white light in the east. It refused to move or twinkle. It wasn’t an aircraft or a star, it was Jupiter rising to rule the sky. We looked at five different methods for finding the North Star.

Thank you to all 400 who came to a Night of Adventure in Bristol on Monday. Great cause, great audience, fun night. If this night comes to a town near you I’d really strongly recommend going if you can, there isn’t anything else remotely like it in the calendar that I am aware of. Well done Alastair Humphreys!

On Wednesday I submitted the edited copy for my next book. That night I waved a fond goodbye to All Roads Lead Home, the series which has hopefully given a couple of million their first taste of the joys of natural navigation.

Yesterday morning I was back in BBC TV Centre in London to film a short sequence for their global travel programme, Fast Track, with the presenter Rajan Datar. This morning I’m off into the hills for a private course.

In Bristol I took the opportunity for a bit of an explore, as you would expect me to. The two pictures above are of the same stone pillar. In the first one, we are looking northeast. In the second one, showing the pollution stains and algae, we are looking southwest. This is a trend that was repeated over a wide area of the city. It was great to find such a vivid example so close to the ground, normally it is worth looking above ground level for the best examples.

What I mean is that I often find myself creeping about rather stealthily, for fear of disturbing the animals (sometimes these animals are the kids who I dare not wake up too early for fear, in the words of Russell Crowe in Gladiator, of ‘unleashing hell’).

I move out and forward, toes on grass, silently caressing my Canon SLR in my hands like a rifle and then I wait. I wait for the Big Game.

This game is rarely actually an animal, more often it will be some unexpected quirk in nature’s portfolio.

This morning I made my way over a fence, and into the field of sheep. The sheep, which are not as endangered as some species, did not fear the camera. They coughed and farted around me.

I was being drawn by the beacon of the Morning Star, as some are wont to call the planet Venus at such times. More particularly my magnet was the constellation Scorpius to the south of it. Many are fond of saying that Scorpius cannot be seen in the winter, but that betrays a heavy bias towards evening stargazing rather than the pre-dawn form of the sport.

Then I felt the cold northerly breeze and thinking that I might have caught the scent of some new prey in the air, I turned and as I did the sky drew me in. There it was, the big game! A moonlit mackerel sky. Bang! It fell into the lens and I hauled it back to share with you, round this, the campfire blog.

PS. The star that can be seen near the top of the picture is Arcturus, one of the brightest in the sky.

This was not mist close to the ground – horizontal visibility was excellent – but thin layers of high cirrus clouds. This effect has been used by navigators and travellers the world over as a sign that the a front may be approaching and a weather change is likely.

Cirrus on its own is not a guarantee of anything, but when followed, as it so often is, by cirrostratus and altostratus it is a strong indicator of an approaching warm front.

In my book I give the example of the frequent Greenland traveller, Gretel Ehrlich, who noted during a dog sled trip with a local hunter that a ring circling the sun in the morning signalled bad weather. Similar examples are to be found in deserts, on Pacific islands and among students of weather lore the world over.

My sources tell me that the first is a Magpie Inkcap (Coprinopsis picaceus) and the second is Green Elf Cup/Wood cup/Stain (Chlorociboria aeruginascens).

My thanks, in no particular order, to: Nick Weston, Brian and Ross Gardner.

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A thousand apologies for that title.

Seriously now, are there any fungi experts out there?

Yesterday I came across these two rather fun specimens during a family walk in our local woods. Thought one was a Panther cap, but looks a bit too ‘pointy’ for that. The blue one is beautiful, but not one I can even guess at. I’m assuming it is a fungus, but could be a lichen at a stretch I suppose?

If anyone knows someone in the know please could you waft these images under their expert noses. Much obliged. Credit will be given. My email address is here.

On a different subject, my thanks to James Garrett for booking a private course for 15 people on Saturday afternoon and to all those who came. We set off from Ditchling Beacon on top of the South Downs and after some exploration and investigation of an area rich in natural clues, we were able to wrap the day up with Jupiter, then Capella, Arcturus, Deneb, the Plough, Polaris, Cassiopeia. Way to finish. I was so glad to have an excuse to be on top of the Downs. Thanks!

If you are awake shortly before sunrise over the next couple of weeks, look just south of east. If it is clear then you should see what appears to be white star on top of a yellow one, both of them sitting not far above the horizon. The higher of the two is Gamma Virginis, or Porrima, in the constellation, Virgo. Below that will be the orangey-yellow Saturn. Neither of them are especially bright and so they will not stand out with the confidence that Jupiter is doing at night at the moment, but they should still be easy to find until the first light of dawn swamps them.

NB. Try not to be thrown by a brighter orange object that is closer to northeast, but also low in the sky early in the morning at this time of year; this is the star Arcturus, in the constellation, Bootes. It is the third brightest star in the night sky and so will likely draw your attention.

It is navigationally interesting because of its declination or ‘celestial latitude’. At 19 degrees north it passes overhead a lot of major cities, including Honolulu, Mumbai and Mexico City.

The easiest way to find Arcturus is to follow the the handle of the Plough on its curved path away from the ‘saucepan’. The star that can just be seen in the top right of the photo is the end of the saucepan handle.