Let me show you a short video from my very close encounter with a wild boar while on a walk in the forest. I was looking for some ash for one of my whittling projects when I came across this beast. This is why I like to wear earth-tone clothes and smell of pine pitch and smoke while on walks in the woods 🙂 That large and lonely boar never even knew I was there – 15 yards in front of it. This is my closest encounter with a boar and frankly, I don’t think I wanna get any closer 😉

I know, I know. There are places, even in Poland, where getting this close to a semi-wild boar is not a big deal. Especially in the west/north-west. From what I’ve seen, those boar are a bit like foxes in London. It’s not the same out here. These are truly wild and mostly forest-dwelling animals. Their numbers in the area, however, may be increasing, as I come a cross more and more of them. I’ve seen four boar on two recent walks. That’s almost as many as I saw as a kid walking around the woods almost every day for months. So either I’m getting better at this, or there are simply more boar out there these days.

First, I was getting them on camera traps I was using for my MRes project. Now, I seem to be bumping into them almost every time I’m out in the woods. It’s definitely nice to see them but there are downsides too. It’s not about safety. I didn’t really feel threatened by this or any of the boar I’ve seen. The general rule is, unless it’s a sow with young, if they see you, they run. The problem is, wild boar, like everything else, have to eat. And they’ll eat anything and everything. From seeds to roots to mice, snakes and grouse chicks. We have a small population of hazel grouse here. The birds nest on the ground. With so many wild boar browsing the undergrowth, it seems these birds may find it increasingly difficult to rear their chicks.