The beast coming to a wood near you

The rougher hills of Galloway are being rootled by hairy snouts but the spread of wild boar is cause for celebration, says Patrick Laurie

- Patrick Laurie

I like to take my time coming off the hill. Patience is always rewarded on this piece of wild country above the Solway, even if it’s a mere glimpse of a sparrowhawk or the whirling span of golden plover above the coast. There are plenty of good places to lie out and watch the world go by. Passing through a favourite spot in the autumn, I laid in the heather and took out my binoculars.

This is a good place to find a fox, and somehow my eye was drawn to a patch of rough grass and birch scrub 300 yards away. I don’t know why I lingered upon that spot, but my hackles rose as I focused the lenses and found that there was a great deal more than grass and trees in view.

I was staring at two adult wild boar; hump-backed and glowering at me in the broad daylight. Then with inimitable piggish style, they turned and made off. Boar do not gallop or sprint; nor do they scamper or bound. Wild boar travel and they do so at a jostling, tireless jog. I watched them go, high-sided and dark as a pirate’s sail with a tumult of piglets alongside them, each one ochre and striped.

Comic despair

I laughed aloud to see them; the tall boxy ears of the leading sows, the comic despair of the last piglet as it tried to keep up with the team. I recalled similar encounters in the forests of Croatia, Sweden, France, and Poland; that same top-heavy lurch that screams excitement, danger, and fun in equal measures.

Wild boar are a fact of life in Galloway now. I welcome them with open arms and it’s a delight to know that the rougher hills are being rootled by stiff, hairy snouts. But these animals are shy to the point of paranoia. Despite having seen plenty of evidence of their passing, I have only seen boar in the flesh once before in this piece of countryside, and that on the edge of darkness in a stuffy woodland glade.