Recently we have had a light dusting of snow which is always interesting as it shows up the visitors to the wood from the footprints left behind. What was immediately apparent was the large number of visitors, a lot of rabbit tracks and a lot of deer tracks. Also fox or dog and then loads of birds of various sizes and finally the dreaded squirrels.

Last week I got myself set up in the hide with camera at the ready and sausage roll in waiting for lunch time and almost immediately I saw a Muntjac deer in the undergrowth. I thought to hold fire because it was bound to come out in the open and although I have the camera set to ‘silent’ it does still make a little click noise when I take a photo so I did not want to alarm it before it was in a good position to photograph. However the Muntjac remained in cover and  gradually worked its way deeper and deeper into the shrubbery and I never saw it again. Still nice to know it was around. You can just about make it out in this photo.

Then a couple of days ago I spotted a deer, It was a Roe deer although I mistakenly referred to it as a Fallow deer when I featured it on FB. Not just one, there were two, one of them bigger than the other and these two stuck together, At one point the larger one spent some time licking the smaller one, I assumed it was Mother and offspring. Then I saw a third one this one was hanging back but still following the same route as the earlier two. This one was a male and it had a large bare patch on its shoulder area, no doubt from a previous rut, not this year but sometime back as it was well healed up.

They were browsing on the leaves of brambles, not much else about at this time of year, they do seem to like Holly which is surprising given the prickles. There is quite a bit of Holly in the wood but not in the region of my hide.