Second night

Second night

Last night on the night stand I had a hunting experience full of life, full of moments worth living for.

Already at 21:47, as the forest had wrapped itself in complete darkness, a serious sounder started moving toward the half-dried wallow.
They lingered there for nearly two hours, where the ground was still damp, enjoying the cool mud.

From my stand overlooking the feeder I heard every sound they made: the splashing of the wallowing, the piercing squeals of the piglets, the calm, contented rustling of the sounder.

After the wallow, they headed my way, but for some reason – perhaps an unfamiliar scent – they ran through the woods behind my stand, in front of the new bird bath.
By then a badger was already at the feeder, nibbling on corn: crunching quietly, dignified, comfortably sprawled out.
It thoroughly inspected the still-detectable traces of the previous day’s events, but didn’t dwell on them much.

Then around a quarter to four in the morning, the regular visitors arrived at the feeder: the group of five young pigs.
Well, those ones were quite nervous, on edge.

On one hand they were picking corn from behind the feeder, on the other hand the faint noise of the trail camera’s calibration – as quiet as if I had merely dropped a toothpick – sent them scattering.
A bit later they crept back cautiously, but even the lowest setting of my stand lighting was too much for them: they’d had enough, and slipped away silently, as if they’d never been there.

This is a fine illustration of everything I laid out in my earlier post about the multisensory perception of wild boar.
(https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=122209009736506858&id=61565205749864)

Third night

As full of life as the previous night was, this one was just as uneventful.

Interestingly, not just where I was sitting, but the whole surrounding area – not even a single branch snapped.
The cameras sent no pictures at all, as if the whole forest had fallen asleep.
That’s how it goes around here sometimes.

Still, I had a great time at my stand overlooking the wallow tucked behind the hawthorn cover. I neatly trimmed the new shoots hanging in, pulled in and tied down the more distant leafy branches that provide good cover.
I encouraged regrowth in a few spots that offer better concealment, so my stand will be even better hidden in the future.

Fourth night

The night turned out to be quite interesting.

As the sun went down, and I could barely see anything with the naked eye, I kept hearing the forest’s small sounds of life from 60-80 meters from the stand, from every direction.
I listened alertly to see what would come of them.

At times I heard sounds suggesting a small sounder from the woods across the way – the thermal camera confirmed it too – but they never made it to the wallow; they calmly, deliberately turned back.
Other times there was a single grunt – not the indignant or warning kind a sow gives when sensing danger, but a simple, everyday grunt.
There was every kind of branch-snap, “silent” movement, or rather gliding, the rustle of leaf litter – but nothing more.

The bottom line: I never got anywhere close to actually laying eyes on anything.

I’ve had many nights like this here, in this area. The threshold for triggering alarm is very low here. It’s not even a matter of several cues stacking up to cause flight – here it seems a single molecule out of place is enough, and the hunter is left wondering: what happened?

But what’s even stranger: none of the cameras set up at the three locations recorded anything at all.
The one at the wallow, nothing; the one at the feeder, nothing either; and even the camera facing the bird bath didn’t capture a single movement.
And I was sitting barely 120 meters from the farthest camera.

Plenty to ponder…