Andalucian Wild Boar...

Not a typical sight anywhere but the type of thing you can only see in a rural Andalucian village - a 250lb wild boar hanging off the back of the local bin wagon. I havnt a clue how it came to be there but presumably the wagon had hit the beast and the lads had claimed it as a trophy, it was certainly generating a lot of attention from the locals!

Wild boar are quite common in the hills as are foxes and wild dogs, I have never come across one (yet) but know people who have hit a boar late at night with there car, needless to say the car had to go into the bodyshop for repair. A boar is a substantial animal basicly a big pig with attitude. Sunday mornings during the hunting season is when the hunters patrol the woods looking to shoot wild boar (although I have heard they rarely get one) We are fortunate enough to have acres of pine forest within a mile and are encouraged to collect wood which is cut once a year - the reason is to reduce the fire risk during summer.
One morning we approached the wood down the usual farm track and met two local shooters with a few crossbred dogs running around. It was very misty and we decided to ask if they were on a shoot, they said no but advised us not to go into the wood as there were "crazy people" with shotguns....at this point we heard shots ringing out and decided the wood would wait. Two spanish locals (who were also armed to the teeth) calling other spanish "crazy" seemed to be good enough reason in itself.

An organised shoot is when all the hunters from near and far invade the village bars at 9am in the morning and can be seen spilling out onto the streets drinking beer....A multitude of 4x4,s towing trailers congest the whole village and the hunt atmosphere is jovial to say the least. In these trailers are dogs - at least 10 dogs in each one. White staring eyes, wire furr, and fangs like a sabre tooth tiger. I have never seen dogs that had an "evil look" like these, obviously bred for the purpose! We gave the trailers a wide berth.

Bit of a comparison from my old town Newcastle then! Having lived in the country for many years I was used to many aspects of rural life in Andalucia but some things are just a case of "well this is Spain"!!!

Next, Snow and lots of it.....