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Roe Deer Feeding.
Canon 1DMk2. 500mm F4 L USM plus 1.4x converter. 		Badgers and Bluebells

During the first month (March 07), I didn't see any badgers but I knew they were there. The food and straw that I left was being taken and I found an active latrine just 50 yards from the sett.

Dave actually managed to get a photo of a badger during the middle of the day entering the sett. It took him completely by surprise - he was there for the deer. We couldn't explain this behaviour - I've never seen badgers out and about so early. Possibly, it needed the loo. Or maybe it just couldn't sleep. Who knows.

Although I wasn't having much luck with the badgers, there was plenty of other activity to make the effort worthwhile. The wood has a good number of roe deer and fallow deer. There are foxes, rabbits and many birds - I saw tree creepers, woodpeckers, nuthatches, buzzards and so on.

Roe deer are really quite abundant in this wood and I see them on most visits. Roe deer are probably my favourite species of all to photograph - they are a challenge to stalk without being detected and can be incredibly shy. I know that many other UK based wildlife photographers also cite this species as their favourite, including many professionals.

I must do an article soon covering roe deer in much more detail but for now here's a brief introduction.

 

Smaller than red, fallow and sika deer but larger than muntjack, roe deer are probably the "prettiest" of the deer species regularly found in Britain. I certainly think so. They don't have the grandeur of the reds and the rut (when adult males spar for females) is far less impressive. They don't have very large antlers and they don't roar like a red. And yet I never get tired of watching them. I have lost count of the number of years I have spent stalking, watching and photographing these animals. They are quite simply beautiful.

And they are doing very well too. They are the most abundant of all deer in Britain. They are not farmed or "managed" in the same way that red and fallow deer are; they can be regarded as truly wild. They are crepuscular (most active at dawn/dusk) but can be seen at any time of day or night.

The males are called bucks (not stags) and grow their antlers each year for the rut just like other deer. The first stage of antler growth is termed "in velvet" and the buck shown here on the right is in velvet.

The antlers are soft and covered in a velvet-like fur. The velvet contains many blood vessels and help the antlers to grow. Before the rut (in July/August), the velvet starts to die and wither and is scratched off by the male to reveal the sharp antlers which will harden ready for the rut.

Photographically, I'm quite pleased with the back-lighting and shadow in this shot but I don't like the setting - I'd rather the grass was longer. But then the animal wouldn't be in velvet.


Roe Buck in Velvet.
Canon 1DMk2. 500mm F4 L USM.

Roe Doe.
Canon 1DMk2. 500mm F4 L USM.
 

 

This is the female (doe) of the species. About the same size as the bucks, the does do not have antlers.

The out-of-focus framing of this shot was produced by me photographing through the middle of a gorse bush.

Compiled June 2007.

 

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