Red Deer and Roe Deer

I usually see, or at least hear, deer when I am at Bel's Wood. I also see fresh prints on their regular routes. I have positioned the camera to try and capture them passing through. They cross the beck at one point but I have not yet been successful at capturing them leap across but will try again.

I have seen two species of deer - Red Deer and Roe Deer. Both are considered to be native species in England now and are common in the Lake District. The Red are larger and both seem equally shy. Telling them apart is not that easy as they are not seen together and with some videos being at night you don't get the background for comparison. Also there are some young ones. I am fairly confident that the white bob tail is the Roe Deer while the Red Deer has a drop down fawn coloured tail that covers their white bottoms.

Here are a selection of both - video and stills and some footprints. I am not 100% confident of the footprints as the underground condition makes a difference ie how soft the ground it but the Roe Deer do appear to be lighter on their feet. But if the Roe Deer is alarmed it will leap and so make a deeper print. 

Red Deer

Larger and deeper marks in the ground than Roe Deer prints

This beauty could sense I was there but I stood very still and managed to get my camera in position without breaking my silhouette and she stood there for a while. I have lightened the picture as it was getting dark. I love the tension in this photo and the eye contact. 

Female Red Deer - I am yet to see a male Red Deer on the land

Roe Deer 

Two mature Roe Deer wandering through the gorse at night

Two  young Roe Deer wandering through calmly - wait for the second one who shows his new and growing antlers nicely - see below

More light footed and smaller feet than the Red Deer so likely to be Roe Deer prints

Sweet young Roe Deer calmly walking through the shot

A mixed blessing

I do love to hear and see these deer coming through the wood. They appear to range over a large area and there are well trodden routes across the road at the bottom and coming in from the north. When they arrive they jump over the walls and fences. The has been damage to the dry stone walls on their regular routes. They live on new shoots so when I reach the point that I start planting I will need to protect the saplings. There is some natural generation of trees taking place on the site as the gorse and brambles act as nature's barbed wire. There are hawthorn, blackthorn and broom growing in amongst the 4-5m high gorse. Also silver birch has grown successfully but I haven't seen new silver birch saplings growing. There is an option to erect high deer fences around the whole plot but I would not want to exclude them entirely which leads to the need to protect each sapling. The preferred methods are biodegradable plastics which are unsightly and I assume create micro-plastics as they disintegrate. More investigation is needed to see what options exist which are not too labour intensive. The previous method of using metal cages was stopped due to the need to manage the release of the tree. This could be possible for me to do. Meanwhile the deer will remain free to roam and graze.