Wild Boar
I have been working on a 2020 Vision project on Wild Boar with my great friend Robyn Ward. He is a real "man of the forest" and a great boar fan and expert, he has taught me so much about the habits of these animals. Wild Boar are of course controversial as a lot of people are afraid of them, with tales of people being chased and gardens being turned into building sites. Whilst I cannot deny that wild boar do have a tendency to enjoy landscape gardening, the thought of a wild boar riding a bicycle chasing other cyclists is one that I just cannot quite imagine.
Videos
| Before the photography could begin in earnest we had to find a good area for them first. Wild Boar are very elusive and the area is vast, so we could potentially spend years finding a hotspot. The solution was to use a remote sensing camera that could be left out for days in one location, recording whatever walked by it's sensitive lens. So we bought one! Here is one of the short videos that the camera shot whilst on location, check out the end of the film where you can see the boars' breath go right by the camera. |
Latest Shots
The discovery of so many boar in one area gave us some hope so we started to concentrate on the area to see if we could get some daylight action. Well it took a few visits and a little but of patience but we were rewarded with some lovely encounters with sows and their piglets. I am now working on getting some images of the big boars but this is proving challenging to say the least, watch this space......|
I stalked the female one afternoon through some woodland and managed to get in a perfect position for the wind so that she couldn't smell me. Taken with the Nikon D3s, 200-400mm lens, ISO 800, 1/1000th at f6.3 |
The moment when I knew that the boar knew exactly what I was. Under a net on the track all was good whilst the wind was right, but then she moved! Taken with the Nikon D3s, 200-400mm lens, ISO 800, 1/800th at f4 |
 I love the piglets, they are so much fun to stalk. Luckily I saw them on the edge of the track a 100 metres ahead so I got down on my belly and crawled forward commando style.Taken with the Nikon D3s, 200-400mm lens, ISO 800, 1/500th at f4 |
 It was getting late and I was just about to give up when a sow with piglets walked right upto me. This little one was just so inquisitive and gave me this lovely little shot. Taken with the Nikon D3s, 200-400mm lens, ISO 1000, 1/400th at f5.6 |
SlideshowThese are very early days in the project and wild boar are a very difficult subject. I have had a few successes though and you can see a fun collection of the pictures so far in the slideshow below, along with a few old favourites shot previously To use the slideshow first expand it to the largest size then use your keyboard cursors / mouse to scroll forward. Or you can press play and just sit back and enjoy! |
|
That’s all from the wild boar for now, I will update as soon as I get some more images on here!
All Content ©2013 ARWP LTD