It’s not over yet

I couldn’t believe it when I looked outside at 08.00 am this morning. The ‘sanglier’ had been back yet again last night.

The damage was less significant than previously but it will still take more time and effort to reinstate and quite frankly, I’ve got better things to do than keep shovelling earth around.

The questions are, where did they come from this time and how did they circumvent my ‘anti-sanglier’ fence, incomplete though it may be? The first clue came from the land below mine from which they always ascend through the gap, which had been ripped up yet again.

There was no sign of damage on the land neighbouring mine on the south, so as I’d previously surmised, they had not come from that direction. So it was obvious that the sanglier had taken the same route as previously and after encountering my fence had veered right onto my neighbour’s land to the north where they had done some more quite significant damage.

It was apparent that my fence had had some effect because this time there was also damage to the ground along my neighbour’s side of it quite close to its perimeter.

And high up too, almost to the tree line, showing that the fence had been a barrier to the animals on that side of it, preventing them from coming onto my land this time.

So how had they got onto mine again? The answer was on the ground below mine where a track could be clearly seen entering the trees on the bottom (eastern) end of my land in which I had mounted several metres of mesh barrier.

I mentioned in a previous post that it could probably do with being extended by a few metres more and last night’s events prove this to be so, because the beasts had indeed found the small gap which I said existed in the trees and bushes at its end, climbed up the low bank and emerged onto my land which they had then attacked at their leisure.

This shows the distance between where my mesh barrier currently ends (arrow) and the gap through which they emerged.

So it looks as though my work extending the barrier in the treeline has to go ahead. And sooner rather than later if I’m to avoid repeats like this every night as soon as the weather becomes a bit more mild.

FOOTNOTE

Yes, another one. That’s two in two posts. I went out early in the afternoon and reinstated – for the seventh time – all the earth that the ‘sanglier’ damaged again last night. It doesn’t look too bad from a distance, but close up the ground down there is now looking pretty rough.

Afterwards I plugged the gap that I think they came through as best I could with my large trailer. Only time will tell if it will work until I can do something more permanent. Funny how the ruddy mole now seems to be working overtime as well down there, in concert with the sanglier.

While I was there I happened to look at the field over on the other side of the small valley below my land and was astonished to see the extent of the sanglier damage over there. The following shot has been blown up and is not of very high quality but you can see how the whole of the upslope over there has been scavenged by the beasts. There must have been quite a herd of them.

So they’re not out to get just me – it only feels like they are 😉