WE'VE WON! The government has just confirmed they're totally scrapping the forest sell-off. The phoney consultation has been cancelled. The sinister legal changes to pave the way for privatisation have been dropped.
This decision affects all of the forests included in the consultation, which is great news - not just the Forest of Dean. On a local level though, full credit to the HOOF team for their unrelenting effort - that was a first class campaign.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-12488847
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/feb/17/forest-sell-off-abandoned-sorry-caroline-spelman
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/forests/8330702/Government-abandons-forest-sell-off.html
Wyedean Rally
It was the Wyedean Rally in the Forest of Dean yesterday. It always brings a lot of spectators in to the forest, but it's not my sort of thing really. We only saw a few of the cars and a small herd of traumatised deer.
1/15 sec, ISO 100, F8
Chaaaarge!
This is the same boar as pictured in my previous upload. I spent quite some time with him, and on occasion I pushed my luck a bit too much. This picture was taken just before a charge - not quite what you want when you're squatted down with a camera stuck to your face! Boar do not charge unprovoked - I really was a little too close. The charge was only a warning, or a 'dummy' charge, stopping short a couple of metres or so. Didn't stop me from taking cover behind the nearest tree trunk though! This is definitely how not to go about watching wild boar :) We parted company on much better terms - I recorded some video of him putting himself back to bed later on, and will get that uploaded soon.
Let Sleeping Boar Lie
Sometimes I'm not always as stealthy (or as sensible!) as I should be when photographing our wildlife. I found this male wild boar asleep last weekend. I took a few snaps as I quietly approached, until finally I saw his eye flick open in the viewfinder. A split second after this shot he was on his feet and ran away in the other direction. This was not the end of this encounter though by a long way... I'll share some more photos soon :)
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