The young wild boar is learning fast, perfecting its ability to turn up in the wrong place and cause a bit of a stir amongst the herd. It’s a wild boar’s survival strategy to push its snout into everything, so this is good practice.
I would have assumed that the big male boar would be in charge of the herd but he doesn’t seem to get his way with the sows, who emphatically stick up for themselves with a lot of outraged vocalisations.
In this iPad drawing from a photograph, I’ve limited my colours to three mid-tones, finishing off with a darker shadow version and an off-white tone for highlights.
How close to your place do they come, Richard? I suppose close unless you use field glasses. But I thought the main male would chase away a young male that got too feisty. And those mouthy
sows are a surprise. The greys and off white work . When you say this is from a photograph, do you mean one of yours? I mean you have made them so alive that I am guessing your information is based on a herd you are watching. Maybe from an earlier experience, instead?
I photographed these ‘tame’ wild boar in an enclosure where they’d been introduced to clear the ground. I haven’t heard of any living wild in Yorkshire but they’re well established on the Welsh border around the Forest of Dean and in parts of the West Country.
I snapped away and took about 100 photographs – thank goodness for digital! – and chose one which I thought brought out the characters of the individuals as they’d seemed to me. The young one was actually a bit browner than the adults and had a bit of a stripe on it, but I’ve lost that somewhere along the line.
Great characters, but I wouldn’t go in with them!