{"id":170,"date":"2014-04-08T08:20:43","date_gmt":"2014-04-08T08:20:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.obsessedbynature.com\/blog\/?p=170"},"modified":"2014-04-08T08:20:43","modified_gmt":"2014-04-08T08:20:43","slug":"of-wild-pigs-and-stained-glass-yes-its-the-forest-of-dean","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.obsessedbynature.com\/blog\/2014\/04\/08\/of-wild-pigs-and-stained-glass-yes-its-the-forest-of-dean\/","title":{"rendered":"Of Wild Pigs and Stained Glass, yes it’s the Forest of Dean"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Wild<\/a>
Wild Boar diggings in Forest of Dean<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It’s one thing to be used to seeing signs of wild boar in France, quite another to realize these fine animals have returned without any bureaucracy about release licences and experimental sites and suchlike. Whatever happened, whether they just escaped or were released by animal rights protesters or some other story, they are now out in the wild, and exuberantly breeding.<\/p>\n

\"Wild<\/a>
Wild Boar Prints of Different Sizes<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The many diggings beside the trails in the Forest of Dean show the presence of numerous family groups, while the splayed prints of different sizes leave no doubt about the families of pigs with all ages represented.<\/p>\n

\"Stained<\/a>
Stained Glass Window in the Forest: Sculpture Trail<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Casting pearls before swine … or at least, dangling stained glass over them. The forest is enlivened with a wide range of sculptures in the now very well established trail. The famous giant chair is becoming a bit wonky, and has been repaired with cement. The magnificent stained glass window adds glowing colour whatever the weather.<\/p>\n

\"Orange<\/a>
Orange and White Lichens on Birch in Forest of Dean<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A lone birch in a clearing shines out with brilliant orange and white patches. The orange is not the common orange lichen (Xanthoria<\/em>) which shows a leafy thallus: the orange patches here seem to consist almost wholly of fruiting bodies which are not circular apothecia with clear rims, but fuzzy tufts, presumably of spores.\u00a0 And the white circular patches are also lichens, not just areas of bare bark: their fruiting bodies show up dark within the white circles.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s one thing to be used to seeing signs of wild boar in France, quite another to realize these fine animals have returned without any bureaucracy about release licences and experimental sites and suchlike. Whatever happened, whether they just escaped or were released by animal rights protesters or some other story, they are now out … Continue reading Of Wild Pigs and Stained Glass, yes it’s the Forest of Dean<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[89,90,88],"tags":[101,104,102,103],"class_list":["post-170","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environment","category-natural-history","category-nature-reserves","tag-forest-of-dean","tag-lichens","tag-sculpture-trail","tag-wild-boar"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.obsessedbynature.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.obsessedbynature.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.obsessedbynature.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.obsessedbynature.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.obsessedbynature.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=170"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.obsessedbynature.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":176,"href":"https:\/\/www.obsessedbynature.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170\/revisions\/176"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.obsessedbynature.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.obsessedbynature.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.obsessedbynature.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}