Deer at Dawn

The fog hadn’t long been cleared by the rising sun and a stiff breeze when we can face-to-face with this roe deer as we rounded a bend in a footpath near Wolsingham in Weardale. It’s hard to tell which of us was more surprised but what is certain is that I was a bit slow off the mark, so all I got was this picture of it bounding off, flashing its distinctive alarm signal – the heart-shaped patch of white hairs on its rump. I guess it didn’t smell or hear us approaching, as we were downwind and the sound of wind through the autumn leaves drowned out our footfall.

A little later we encountered this doe and her fawn on the edge of a field and this time we weren’t spotted until we’d had a good look at them grazing in the early morning sun.

This fawn would have been born last spring and will stay with its mother through the winter.

Eventually they picked up our scent, and were gone in an instant