Photos of a young Fallow Deer Buck that had managed to snag a clump of bracken on its antlers, making it look like it had tried to camouflage itself last week.
This buck had a tan coloured coat with light spots was not fully matured, its antlers only showing a relatively small plate or hand in the antler structure, giving this type of antler its name ie 'palmate' antler. He was spending time with a similar aged, but melanisitic (dark coloured coat), buck on the very edge of the main rutting stand in the field where the fully mature bucks were holding their ground (more of these in following posts).
The two bucks had started parallel walking towards me, often a precursor to fighting with their antlers, when unfortunately they spotted me in the undergrowth, and eventually left the field in the opposite direction.
Two days later, I came across this non-camouflaged tan coloured buck in the surrounding woodland in a small clearing with bracken. I think it may have been the same buck, and possibly where it had got its bracken from earlier?
Over the last fifteen years I have noticed a reduction in the sightings of these pale coloured deer, both in bucks and hinds, the melanastic being the norm, and only the very occasional extremely pale or 'white' deer at all recently. I wonder if it is the policy of the Ashridge Estate to deliberately target these lighter coloured deer in the annual cull, which according to the webpage on Deer Management on the Ashridge Estate starts on the 1st of November. It is my own observation, but the webpage is silent on the selection of deer to be culled. Or are they the target for illegal poachers, shooting for a trophy? Having said that, I have to accept that generally the cull is necessary, as the numbers of deer on the estate are high, and that the damage done to the woodland by browsing deer, including the common Muntjac Deer is detrimental to the diversity of other woodland species, with areas where there is little undergrowth left.
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