Worth the walk.

I was once again back at Thetford Forest after the Roe Deer again. Harvest time was now well under way and I was hoping with some of the fields now being open, that I would catch one or two deer out in the open at first light. I was also hoping to get photographs of young Roe Deer with the does or perhaps a wandering buck seeing as the Roe Deer should still be rutting. I eventually parked the truck a little way up a byway and started out on foot.

It was 4:45am and almost immediately I came across a Fallow doe and her fawn in some carrots. It was not yet light enough though to get a good enough shot, so I just watched them for a while before they went back into some woodland. A short while later, as I came to the first freshly cut field, I found a young Roe buck that had just wandered out of the forest. He started to head up the middle of the field but I was able to close in on him by using the the large heston bales out on the field as cover. However, he was still just a bit too far off but then he started to cut past me at an angle towards the track I had just walked along.

Again, by using the bales, I was able to get back to the track too. I thought that he would go across the track but he then decided to follow the field edge up alongside the track. He was obviously scenting a doe that must have past that way beforehand, as every so often he would stop to either sniff at the thistles that grew alongside the track, or have a bit of a thrash at them. Each time he did this I would stop but as soon as he started to move off again I would follow as quickly as I dared, all the while closing the gap between us. Eventually I was only thirty metres away from him and was able to get a few shots of him as he realised I was there and looked back at me. I expected him to now bolt off, but amazingly he didn't seem to register me as a threat and just continued on his way!

So we followed the same procedure and I was able to get more shots of him as again he stopped to look at me. This time though he decided I was too ugly up close and went off across the field barking as he went! He stopped a couple of times to look back to see just how ugly I was and then went back into the safety of the trees. By now the sun was just coming up over the tops of the trees. It was a good start. The next thing that offered a picture was a Hare that just simply came lolloping up the track right to me. Things were certainly going my way this morning.

It was however another hour of walking before I saw anything else to photograph. I was alongside a big acreage of heathland and I disturbed a Roe doe that ran a short distance out and then stopped to look back at what had disturbed it. There was something strange looking about this doe though, and I had seen it once before. It looked like what I can only describe as "lop eared". It's ears drooped outwards making it look a bit like a Llama. It just could not prick its ears up to listen. As I said I have seen this once before and it too was in Thetford Forest but in a totally different area several miles away and that particular Roe, again a doe, had just one ear that was like it. I can only guess at it being genetic to cause the problem but I am trying to research it further to find out more.

I then came into some long grass alongside a shelter belt. I stood there just watching and listening for a few minutes and then a movement caught my eye through the grass about a hundred metres away. Slowly raising the binoculars, I could see it was the tips of the ears of a Roe Deer. Then it became a game of cat and mouse! Each time the ears disappeared as it bent its head to feed, so I moved closer to it. Each time the ears appeared, I stood still. As I got to within about forty metres, I suddenly saw a second pair of ears! It turned out to be a doe and her kid and they were slowly moving to a slightly shorter and thinner patch of grass. I then was able to cut diagonal to them and get ready for them to appear in the shorter grass.

I knew that I would have very little time to get any pictures as by the time the would reach me they would only be about twenty metres away. It all went to plan perfectly though, and I was able to get three quick shots of the kid and then two quick shots of the doe before they realised I was there and took off into the cover of the trees. By now the sun was well up and it was time to head back to the truck. By the time I got back it was 9:15 and I had walked just under six miles in that time. It had certainly been well worth the effort though and I had got some very pleasing shots to be going home with.