How to identify the Silver birch tree

Description

In this video i give a breif description of how to identify the silver birch tree and a few examples of why it is an excellent tree for use in bushcraft

Tags: YouTube Editor,silver birch,Betula Pendula (Organism Classification),bushcraft,fire,survival,Survival Skills (TV Genre),Tree (Ontology Class),Camping,Holiday,Summer,Bear Grylls (Author),how too,Ray Mears' Bushcraft (TV Program)

Video Transcription

hi guys I've got another little bit two identification for you today and today I'm going to be talking about the best treat for use in bushcraft overall okay the tree we're talking about today if you don't already know it I very recommend you very quickly familiarize yourself with this tree and it is this one here just behind me she's the silver birch tree okay its latter name is Bachelor pendulum or bachelor pendula not 100% sure how you pronounce that and this tree in bushcraft has an absolutely expansive range of uses okay smooth and carving violating and even food you can make stuff out the bar it's really fantastic and really did a whole series of videos talking about this tree in particular so today I'm going to be going more through the identification process of it so first off it's easy to identify all year round because it has that wonderful silvery white bark on it okay that bark in itself is really useful you make containers out of its great fire lights absolutely packed full of oil you can make pitch out of it which is going to make it flower ball you can render it down to use as a glue it's great stuff as I said I'll do videos and all those things okay so that's the bark of the tree you also buy the bark peels off really really easily it's like it's like paper or vellum when it peels off but also it's worth noting what the leaves are like as well so I'm just going to grab a couple leaves find some nice ones for you

the twigs are quite tough you can use them to make the rope and stuff again I'll talk about that later on okay so this is the leaves okay the kind of these flat spearhead shaped leaves you've got these little quite wide spikes on them it is a broadleaf tree and that is one leaf okay so you'll get bunch of them believes themselves don't really have much in the way you can't eat them or anything like that but it's worth knowing what they look like

the twigs the twigs are more of a brownie kind of brownie orange color there's some of them down here now these twigs really worth noting if you find some birch trees get yourself underneath pick yourself a little bundle of these give them a bit of dry a bit of a dry off and they make great great kindling again like the bark they're absolutely packed full of oil and it's worth melting what they look like they go look with dark when they fall off the tree a lot of them do fall off this tree gives off a lot of windfall but it's only over these little tiny tiny branches okay so the bark I'm going to quickly show you why the bark is so useful for violatin as I said it's actually packed full of this oil which you can get out of it to turn it to pitch where oil is incredibly flammable so you can make it take the spark but I'm just going to show you with a normal lighter today just quick quickly how easily it takes on the bearing in mind it's absolutely soaking wet day today the rain has only just stopped it's been belting it down all day long so I'm just go get a little bit of bark this through back here so I'm probably the ball camera from over what blows us all okay lucky em okay so here's the bark comes off really easy you literally just pull it off it's a good job team you've got kids with it's a good job to get them to do it they love it so where's my lighter gone too many pockets where did I put you here we go one waiter okay now this bark is I've generally just pulled it off the tree it is wet or damp rather so I'm just going to take it take this thing too and just watch how quickly it goes up it's really fantastic stuff you can hear it hopefully you can hear it crackling on the video there and that crackling and popping is all that is all that oil in the burning okay so you can scrape this down and get it to take with them just a normal spark or it burns really hot smells really good it's out really really we woody smell when it burns actually and there's it burning okay so that's the that's the bark off the tree

so what I'll do I'm really talking about this tree through the seasons because as the seasons go on the use of this tree some of them change and go out of season and others stay in place or what things I'll be talking about is how to harvest the bark off it to make containers out of it how to scrape it to turn it into tinder and how to light light fires using just this tree also be doing a bit of carving with it's a lovely lovely reward it when it's when it's green it's really soft you can get some really nice detailing but it goes quite hard and it's got really really gorgeous patterns and a lot of Scandinavian people make a cop-caller cooks are out of it out of curly birch which I'll talk about a little bit more it's called off these little pearls you can see on the trees behind me so yeah that's a silver birch tree if you don't know it familiarize yourself with it really really quickly especially be just starting out into bushcraft and as always thank you for watching and please being talked to you I see me doing anything thanks guys you