Hi Phil1
First of all, I seriously think you need to stop trying to second guess hogs. I sometimes think they like to keep us guessing and it is just a case of wait and see!
I have had a look at your videos. I agree with you that you really need to try to get the camera further back. As it is you only get such a tiny amount of the action showing that it is not easy to reach much of a conclusion about what is going on.
However, the first video with the ‘shy’ hog looks to me what hogs do. Many of them will prefer to stay near ‘cover’ if they can. The second video where you think the smaller hog is being bullied is actually the larger, male, hog making advances to the smaller female. The reversing motion of the small hog, together with the huffing noise she’s making is typical of female’s behaviour during the courtship ‘dance’. It’s difficult to say from what’s on the video how big she is. She appears small in relation to the male, but maybe he is a very large male. But, it maybe that she is a comparative youngster which may be why he gave up so easily. Equally it could mean that he is just more interested in food. I have, though, seen a fairly large male making advances to a that year’s hoglet, where he was many times the size of her. It happened a few times on different nights (same two hogs). It was never going to get anywhere but that didn’t stop him. Maybe he was just practicing his courtship skills! She, interestingly, didn’t seem to mind.
The third video of the rolled up hog. He was probably rolled up out of sight. The ‘dominant’ hog will often go back and give him another biff, just to make sure he doesn’t unroll. They sometimes push them along for several yards, or until they reach an obstacle. That area doesn’t look like the sort of place where it would be easy to do that so he probably came to a halt there. Sometimes there is a female involved, but not always. Some males just seem to be fairly intolerant of having other males ‘in their space’. By that, I don’t mean any particular location, but just where they happen to be.
As I said above, my advice would be to move the camera a bit further back. But if you are really interested in watching hog behaviour, nothing beats watching yourself. Even with the camera further back the ‘action’ frequently goes out of range.
Good luck and hope you keep enjoying watching the hogs.
