A Deer Friend

 My lunchtime walks I take outside at work are so important to me - it gives me a chance to clear my head, burn off some of the energy my hyperactivity and tourettes send coursing through my body and brain and on our wildlife rich campus, give me a chance to see what is around.

I wasn't expecting to see what I saw trotting across the road at the roundabout at the site entrance.

It was a small brown deer, barely the size of a border collie, and it ambled onto some grass and started munching away under some trees next to the lorry park.

I hid behind a hedge, readied my cameraphone and tried to sneak up on the little creature. I rounded the corner, saw it about 20 metres away, and then it looked up and saw me.

It didn't hang around to see if I was friendly. It took off like the proverbial scaleded cat, ran back across the roundabout, across another road and found its way off campus through the wooden fence behind the wildflower meadow while I tried to take photographs. 

I knew from the size, bodyshape, lack of a powder puff tail and the absence of antlers that I was almost certainly a female muntjac deer - they have been spotted around town before - but I did a little research to check and indeed that's what it was. 

They are not native to the UK, they were introduced to Woburn Park from China in 1838, and after various escapes became established in the south of England. They have obviously decided to make their way north if they are being seen here.

I've seen roe deer in Newark, and indeed at work, before, but this little muntjac was a new one to me!

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 23.07.21

Doh a Deer...

I was out walking along the cycle path, a couple pf miles out of town by the old British Gypsum place which now seems to be home to a French company making washbasins and toilets for the luxury market. I had just gone past the little section of woodland where occasionally Polish folk set up little encampments and tents.

No-one there at the moment, but the rubbish and filth still is, sadly. 

I had decided against crossing the land where a certain member of a certain community had threatened me last year - I could see there was a bonfire and that someone might be around. So I took the turn off onto the road.

I had been listening to Desert Island Discs where the guest, a mixed race composer and double bassist had been of how her Nigerian father had first taught her music by singing "Twinkle Twinkle" at her, and that she had then got into "The Sound of Music" in a big way, and that would be her next choice.

And right at the moment that Julie Andrews sang "Doh a deer, a female deer" a female muntjack deer, about the size of an alsation dog, suddenly skittered across the path directly in front of me, about 5 metres away!

I thought it might have been a roe deer at first, but the longer flashing white tail rather than white bum of the roe indicated it was a muntjac, a species I've never seen before. 

I was thrilled to see it - they've been reported in town before but I've never seen one.

It topped even seeing three egrets on the BLue Lake now, and 6 goosander as well!

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 11.02.18

Deer on Beacon Hill Conservation Park

Today's run was a very gentle trot past the cricket ground, along the cycle path and London Road Lake - where two great crested grebe chicks have emerged from the reeds - and along Clay Lane where there are orange tip butterflies, and a speckled wood settled on my finger for a brief instant.

But on Beacon Hill reserve, where a late brimstone was flying through the nursery, an unusual sight was to be had. As I ran along past the rabbits towards the lower entrance from the main Beacon Hill Road, I saw a dark shape which I initially thought must have been a fox. As I got nearer, I was shocked to see that it was a deer, female I think, of a chocolate brown colour with a flashing white tail.

I've seen roe deer in RSPB Langford, and I figured this was probably what it was, but I've never seen any mention of deer living on Beacon Hill reserve. I've let the wildlife trust folk know.

It's hardly an earth shattering discovery, but, I'm pleased to have made it.