First Sika Calf

David Brown

Well-Known Member
On Saturday I took my son out for the first brown trout fishing trip of the season. As we drove up the forest track we spotted a Sika Hind standing 50m away in a hollow of rank heather. I stopped and looked at her with binos . She looked quite fit unlike the Reds who are just skin and bone. Eventualy she became agitated and trotted out onto some white grass. Amazingly she was followed by a tiny calf that I would estimate at a day or so old. I know that Sika have an earlier and more prolongued breeding season than Reds but for this neck of the woods that is an early calf. It was good to see after the carnage of this winter where I lost all but one Red calf of last year and found many deer of all species dead under the snow when it shifted. I think I am looking at a lost generation here and was worried that the hinds may re-absorb or abort this crop of calves as they got desperatly thin at the end of the winter. David
 
Back
Top