ROE BUCK

As I was downloading the photos of the Bluebells onto "Blue-Grey", in the spair bedroom, I noticed a dog 'a running and a leaping' across the very small rec(reation ground) behind our house, out of the corner of my eye.
"Bugger me! That's a weird dog!", I thought.

I looked a bit closer, then realised it wasn't a dog. It was a deer! On top of that, it looked too big for a pesky Muntjac. ("I didn't see it land" either, so it couldn't have been a Muntjac! (Sorry, "In-Joke")).

I belted downstairs, grabbed the binoculars and ran to the back gate.
Yep.
It was a ROE DEER! By the look of its antlers and the time of the year, a BUCK trying to establish a new territory!

Now bear in mind that on one side of this tiny rec is the main inter-city line from London to Exeter, and on the other is Great Knolly St (a long row of terraced houses), and the fact that I use that rec for my runs - I can run 5 times around the rec in ten minutes, I hope you understand just how small the area of "green" is!

Whilst it's true that the railway embankment is a wonderful overgrown corridor for wildlife, as is the ditch below - Moorhens, Kingfishers etc... I would NEVER have expected to see a bloody deer (and not a Muntjac at that!) in Great Knollys Street!

Just goes to show what you'll see, if you keep your eyes "open"!

The Buck walked all the way down the rec, hugging the embankment fence, which prevented him from getting to cover, turned around at the full car park and walked back. But this time, he saw one post missing from the cast-iron fence, snuck through, leaped the stream (ditch) and was lost from my view in the thick brambles and bushes on the railway embankment. Wonderful!

Roe Deer are one of only TWO native deer species in the UK, (the other being the Red Deer). All other species were introduced, generally by noblemen for hunting.

They do live in a variety of habitats, as long as there is cover. Anna and I saw one prance into cover on a drive up to Henley during the winter (before this Blog existed). You'll see them in small towns and villages, chewing garden flowers before the owners of those gardens get up, but you won't often see them in Cities the size of Reading!

It was relatively fortunate to have only me peering at it. That rec has usually got 2 or 3 bleedin dog-walkers on it at any given time, and just as I type this, an hour after the Deer disappeared, some "yoofs" have started playing a game of football on the rec...

Well done Bambi!


Ps. The photo was not taken by me. I brilliantly did not buy a film when in town this morning! D'oh!

NB 28/04/07 I caught the last 5 minutes of a tv programme last night regarding "City Deer" on BBC tv, about a population of Roe Deer living in a cemetary in Edinburgh. So these Deer DO (or at least can) survive in relatively built-up areas...