This post includes something I've been wanting to showcase for quite a while, and this is the perfect chance to do so. This time last week me and my dad went out on a trip in the campervan, and the first stop was our 4th trip to the forest of dean. We've been 4 times over the last six years with the main task being to record (or at least see) a wild boar. These elusive animals have proved incredibly tricky to find and that has made them my all time number one target to see. We have tried something new this year by staying in a part of the forest where the boar's numbers are highest. They are still a hard animal to see wherever you are (especially when you are only there for a limited time) as there are only about 300 - 500 individuals in the area. Once we arrived I headed off into the forest. There were lots of signs of them everywhere and I set up both my camera traps. Spoiler alert, between them we only got glimpse of a fox which isn't even worth showing. After setting the camera traps up I walked around for a bit longer until the sun started to go down (dawn and dusk is the best time to see boar) and spoke to a guy who said that he sometimes sees a small herd in the area. Some other walkers said that they see them around quite a bit and also recommended a local RSPB reserve called Nagshead as being another good place to see them. I didn't see any boar before the sun went down so switched to my plan B. In February, I bought a thermal imaging camera as a new aid to help me spot wildlife that might be hiding in the shadows of a forest or wildlife that is out at night. It has proved to be a brilliant purchase as I have seen countless foxes and several other things like badgers and rabbits with it. I've never done a blog post using it before so that's what this one is about. I set back out again once the sun had gone down and walked along these long paths that I couldn't really (hopefully) get lost on.
The first animal to be spotted was big fallow deer stag on one of the paths:
Next up was this muntjac walking through the woods:
Then the camera picked up what I believe to be a fox far away on a different path to what I was going to head down:
Next up was a particuarly exciting spot, a tawny owl on the ground near to where one was hiding in a bush just as the sun was going down ( I didn't get a good picture of that earlier one due to low light levels). It was peering around a tree:
Further down the path I spotted loads more deer including this male fallow:
To complete all the dean's deer species, here is some roe deer footage:
While walking back (having not yet seen any boar) I finnally found them off in the distance:
I was so excited to finnally get my first ever footage of a wild boar, even if I couldn't actually see it without the special camera (the topdon TS004 if your interested). But I wasn't finished there as the next day I wanted to complete my long awaited task of seeing a boar, and even better getting a shot of one in the day. In my next post you will see how I got on...
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