Deerwatch
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Years ago I used to travel to work on the train everyday. At certain times of the year when the early morning light was right I used to be able to see deer in a field adjacent to the railway line. Mostly these were silhouettes in pale morning light, but I used to count how many I’d seen and tweet the number with #deerwatch.
When my morning rail commutes stopped when my job changed I still used to see deer, only less frequently and these were in more urban environments. Anecdotally I’d say that “urban” deer are far more skittish and won’t hang about for you to count them much less whip out your phone and take a picture.
Since moving house however, our more rural location means that deer (we have both roe and fallow here, and probably muntjac too) are much more of a daily sighting and they are also more tolerant of humans. When I see a deer now there is a kind of appraisal on behalf of the deer, akin to how much of a threat they perceive me to be I assume. It seems to consist of an assessment of sight, sound and smell.
Ultimately it means that if I am respectful of them, I can sometimes get a photograph, or even a few seconds of video (you’ll need to click through to get the video below).
After I posted the video above, one of my friends reminded me of #deerwatch (Hi Will), and since then I’ve revived the old hashtag. It’s also made me realise and value just how lucky I am to be back in a more rural setting again. I like that my pocket notebook is filled with a list of wildlife each day. I don’t record everything that I see, just the more unusual stuff, but frequently there will be deer listed even if I couldn’t get a photograph because they were too far away. Sometimes the entry is followed with - (lots of) - which means that I effectively lost count after a certain point.
I suspect that over the coming year the list will change and grow with other species and sightings (I’ve talked in previous newsletters about buzzards and cuckoos) and in the last week I’ve been seeing a red kite on a regular basis too. I don’t know what I’ll be writing in those books but I am looking forward to finding out and I dare say that I’ll be reporting back on some of the more unusual stuff here.
After I wrote this I took my dog for a walk and we’d not gone far when I saw two red kites soaring overhead. I managed to capture a short video:
Thanks for reading.
Hi Alan 🙋♂️