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On Tuesday small groups of boars started showing up at the feeding ground already from noon. No wonder, the weather was overcast and blizzard-like grey. The last ones were there at midnight.

 

Yesterday the first appeared at about four o’clock and an hour later there were more than twenty-five creatures on the feeding ground. A big old male boar moved around in the herd – the mating period has begun. The same message came from people on the move in the forest. The herd consists only of sows with one big male, but an even still bigger and stronger male may be competing for its position. The juvenile male boars have already been scared off from the herd.

 

The male boar is quite easy to recognise in the herd: larger body, keeps in the background, doesn’t eat but only tramples around, nuzzling the sows in the herd. The “brush” is visible under the belly, snout is longer, stronger, slightly different-shaped. If the camera image is good the powerful tusks can be seen.

 

Quite many juveniles can be seen in the herd – how old are they? Recent winters have been severe and snow-rich. This spring no sows and piglets were seen in March; they would have been abandoned to cold and famine. Farrowing was delayed until late April to early May, so the smallest ones in camera view are seven to eight months. The best developed ones may even be in heat.