Hi Alan
Good to know you had confirmation that hog is a male! I was pretty sure by the behaviour that it was (although, as said, a small element of doubt can creep in with shorter clips), but nice to have confirmation. It’s just possible that it’s one that hibernated earlier. The males do tend to hibernate much earlier than the females and then return earlier. Usually it’s more like March that they return, but with the unusual weather we seem to get these days, it wouldn’t be surprising if some returned a bit earlier – and not long until March now, anyway! Normally it gives the males a chance to feed up a bit before the females return and they start using up a lot of energy circling females, biffing other males, etc.
I imagine the small ones were last year’s hoglets. The mothers tend to eventually disappear to hibernate with the hoglets still being around for a while. Some hoglets will decide to hibernate as well, but not necessarily all. Looks like a few of those there decided not to hibernate.
