Country diary: wild boar have been rotovating the woodland

Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire: They wield their snouts like a blade, slicing into the root layer then slashing vigorously with a deft twist that turns the ground over

You can't miss the signs of wild boar in the Forest of Dean - the road verges appear to have been enthusiastically but amateurishly rotovated. When we visited in January hundreds of square metres around the car park had been worked over, and it did not take much by way of fieldcraft to spot the culprits. A small sounder (family group) of mother and three young were only metres from the cars, intently truffling for root, grub and worm, a blackbird following them as a gull follows the plough.