The Outdoor Traditionalist : Four Whistles for Four Seasons

For me one of the most satisfying things to make when out and about is a whistle, they are easy to make with minimal effort.

There are four basic whistles that can be made with one being seasonal and so I have divided them into a whistle for each season.

The first is the Spring whistle which is the made of Elder

The Summer one is the truly seasonal one, the Sycamore whistle

The Autumn one is the bottle top whistle

And to finish with the drinks can whistle

Bottle top whistle-Spring

Whilst it is possible to occasionally find acorn cups on the forest floor to use for a whistle at any time of the year, outside of autumn they can often be a bit manky. If you can source one great, if not there is an everyday substitute.

The short stem of the leaf and the long stem of the acorn tell us that this is a Pendunculate Oak (think of a pendulum). It's Latin name is Quercus robur. The stalk arrangements of Sessile Oaks (Quercus petraea) are the other way round.

Pull the acorn from the cup. I aim for a fairly deep one as I find them easier to hold as a whistle, small ones are a bit bothersome.

The 'Urban acorn cup', or one litre fresh juice carton lid. Actually pretty much any plastic lid will do as long as you can get a seal on it, but more later. Metal lids tend to be a bit sharp around the the rim for use as a whistle.

To start with place the cup/ lid between either your left or right index finger and thumb as shown above.

Place the other index finger and thumb (as shown) and position your digits until you have left a small inverted triangular gap at the top between your thumbs whilst making sure that the rest of the cup/ lid is sealed and airtight. You may have a bit of trouble with the last detail of the lid is too big.

Place this arrangement to your pursed lips so that your thumb knuckles are to your mouth (as shown) but with a slight gap at the top so that you can blow air towards the inverted triangular hole. You may find that you need to re-adjust your thumbs but it is quite shrill when you get it right.

You can also use a Squirrel bothered half of a Hazelnut case but it is a little more fiddly than the other two versions.

Sycamore-Summer

This type of carved whistle is often referred to as a sycamore whistle but other tree varieties will work well too. The blog page is a bit of fun and some of the whistles are interchangeable in position, but not this one as it needs to be sappy wood to work.

First off you need to select a piece of wood that is about the diameter of a carpenter's pencil.

Chop a straight section out about five inches in length, then score the bark all the way round as seen by my thumb. The large section to the left of the cut will become the whistle, the smaller bit to the right is a 'handle' which will be explained later.

Start to gently knock the larger left hand piece of branch with something stout like a length of wood or closed Swiss Army Knife, don't use anything with an edge because you don't want to damage the bark.

Make sure you don't hit the bark too hard, just keep working the whole area and then when you think you have done sufficient knocking (check the end to see if it is separating) grab the bark and gently twist with one hand on the whistle bit and the other on the 'handle' in a twisting motion. When it is ready it start to slide off.

Don't take it all the way off but push it back and cut the slot as shown, I used to cut it then bash it and found that I often used to damage the bark around the freshly cut hole but soon changed to the other way round. Personally when it does separate it is a relief for me as I find this bit is easy to muck up.

Now slide the bark off and start to carefully cut the sound chamber as shown. There isn't a prescribed size but the cuts will determine the pitch. Once you have formed a chamber slice about 1 mm off the top of the inner wood between the sound chamber and the end that goes in your mouth.

Slot the bark tube back on and blow. If no sound issues try cutting the sound chamber a little more and the slot from the end to the chamber a very little bit...It'll come good eventually. As well as being Summer specific this type of whistle doesn't last that long due to it drying out and losing it's integrity.