Posted by the Animal of the Year team 08.08.2016

The assumption in the news from the woods about the third week of July, that one of the raccoon dog pups that fled from the wolves to the badger sett might have escaped turned out to be true. At the end of last week a lonely raccoon dog pup with a behaviour that seemed familiar sniffed around in camera view. It relieved itself in the same place as earlier too. The pup that escaped in the attack was the one of the two that happened to be running first, activating the trail camera that recorded the dramatic events. Because of the delayed start of the camera the pup itself was not in the video. That is forest life. A circle of life and death. Life goes on. 

Just as in the news a week ago from the badger sett that Tiit Hunt observes, a wood pigeon visited our burrows too. But it was not having sand baths or looking for gravel for its crop but had an errand belonging to a quite different season. In several video clips the pigeon appears in camera view with a thin tree twig in the beak, then flies up with a clatter from the flatter burrow entrance. In the denser forest there is a risk that the twig would get stuck in a branch so it is better to fly up at the burrow openings. And where then with such a spring-like load, now at the end of summer? It seems that a wood pigeon has ties to its nest even after the nesting period. Interesting!

Wild boars walked past the sett too. However, this time not from our familiar basic herd but new “players”. A smaller herd, where only one larger boar was recorded besides the sow with the striped piglets. The piglets were clearly younger than those in the earlier herd. They have to fatten up fast to reach the right weight for winter.