So much for deer not liking strong winds

willie_gunn

Well-Known Member
Although in the lee of the wood, I still didn't expect to see the roe come out this morning.

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Aye , we have had some bitingly cold winds hurling through a obit of ground , so you go look round the leeward side of the wood , nope......
Right out in the howl ! & skylined too boot !

Think I'll,start taking the camera as I'm certainly not getting a shot!

Paul
 
Aye , we have had some bitingly cold winds hurling through a obit of ground , so you go look round the leeward side of the wood , nope......
Right out in the howl ! & skylined too boot !

Think I'll,start taking the camera as I'm certainly not getting a shot!

Paul

If you shoot it with the camera then you don't have to carry it....!!

Easy life.......

Tim.243
 
Yup , can't beat a good read by fellow members

Good pics Wullie, what set up, range etc were you?

Paul
 
Hi

Great photos as always.
As said before the deer have not read the books written about them and how we see/interpret their behviour.

L
 
Yup , can't beat a good read by fellow members

Good pics Wullie, what set up, range etc were you?

Paul

The photos were taken from about 150 yards away. I had my normal setup - a Nikon D300 SLR with a Nikon 300mm f4 lens, mounted on a gimble on top of a monopod. I was in my normal dog walking gear, so muted browns and greens but no camo, and had the four dogs with me.

This photo shows the ground - the track I walk down with the dogs is the one that runs from North to South. These photos of the deer were taken on the North West to South East edge of the triangular wood in the middle of the photo. The cover crop of sunflowers sits just to the left of it - the large square field sandwiched between the two woods and where the track makes a right-angle bend to run along the bottom edge. This is the same sunflower field where I took the photos last week.

Basically the area covered by this photo supports a population of at least 9 roe and 2 muntjac - probably more but I only have permission to walk along the track, so everything I photograph is within the range of one or two fields from there.

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Basically I was at the bottom left (South West) corner of the sunflower field when I first saw the deer - they had just emerged from the small triangular wood to the left. I wasn't expecting to see anything, so the buck saw me with the dogs and then ran with the three does from left to right across the sunflower field and into the larger triangular wood. Making my way back along the track I spied into the grass field from about where the little kink in the track is. Seeing the four deer emerge from the wood I knelt down and positioned myself by one of the hunt fences and waited.

The deer were quite happy grazing, only taking a break to watch the farm manager's Land Rover come down the track and pass me (I know him well and he likes seeing my photos, so I'm good there too!). Eventually they made their way back to the woodland edge and started to come towards me. I was hoping they might carry on up to a blue pheasant feeder that was about 25 yards away, but unfortunately they nipped into the wood when they were 125 yards away. I did wonder if they might come through the wood and back into the sunflower field, as there is plenty of vegetation there that they clearly like, but despite waiting for 10 minutes nothing appeared.

All this time the four dogs were sitting at my heels.

As ever, the key to stalking was patience. It would have been easy when first seeing the deer appear into the grass field to give up and walk back up the track, but with no pressure to move (other than the fact I was kneeling in mud) I figured there was a chance they might come closer, as I've seen them use this woodland edge before. Of course it was 50:50 that they would come towards me, but in this instance the odds worked in my favour.
 
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