Fallow and the Fence (Part Two)

Annoyingly, I had to cancel a trip to Mark’s in Reading because of work. This w-o-r-k- is starting to interfere a little too much with my leisure time! Apologies to all concerned.

It wasn’t until today (Sunday) that I was able to get out properly. It was very windy but quite mild with the wind coming in from the South West. I loaded up the dog, some water, an apple  and a cereal bar and went looking for fallow deer tracks.

If you remember, the last instalment of The Fallow and Fence showed that several holes had been found and I had set the camera trap. The camera trap had shown a number of fallow outside the fence and one inside. I had personally seen two herds, a small herd of 3 does and a larger herd of 8 inside of the fence where they weren’t wanted.

Since the last post, I have checked the camera trap every day and… nothing! Not even the lure of apples, vegetables and salt carefully placed outside of the fence showed no activity of fallow going from inside to outside. There was some tracks around the bait site outside the fence, probably just out of activation reach of the camtrap.

On Friday, I made the decision to board up the hole. In all probability, the deer got out before I set the camtrap and the congregation of them I had caught on the cam was possibly the herd still hanging around. It was now a case of checking the main areas again for tracks just to be sure.

Today, after a good four hours of tracking around the fence-line, I started to become quite positive. There was only Muntjac and the odd Badger track about.

On my journey, I noticed something that I hadn’t seen for a while; a Thrushes anvil, where the bird takes a snail and bashes the shell against a stone.

Then… I saw it. A recent, single fallow track! Damn! There must be at least one still left in. This was confirmed a little later when I found some fresh currants. Strangely, I saw no more fallow tracks. Had I seen things?

Only one thing for it. I had to set up the camera trap again. Even though there may be still one fallow still left in, I was still quite pleased that the majority seemed to be out – although how much of that was my doing was debatable!

Next episode next week.