the roebuck and his wife

heavy rain overnight and the nut trees have little green jewel leaves all through the wood.

glimpse.jpg

we met the roebuck at last, walking towards us along the edge of the wheat at the bottom of the field. he turned and trotted back, then up and over the bank and ditch through a gap in the hedge, into the beginning of the wood. water lying around everywhere and the new leaves pin-fresh, woodpecker drilling, larks singing up in the air, and the thrush in the wood. rounding the corner of the wood where I saw the doe yesterday, no sighting, but a roe barking further in, a cacophony of guttural barks. and then as we turned again towards the bottom of the green lane, there was the doe looking at us from the entrance. I continued to walk along, camera out in the vain hope of getting near enough, but she had enough of our presence, and gained the wood path in three huge leaps. through all this the dogs kept behind me, but off the lead they had a wonderful time, noses down getting all the fresh scent of the deer. I imagined that the barking roe was the buck sounding the alarm call, which brought the doe out to see what was going on, and saved her the danger of meeting us at much closer quarters. but it may well have been the buck defending his territory from another buck.

goatwillows.jpg

everything was beaded with raindrops this morning; my feet got very wet.

cowparsley.jpg

2 Comments

  1. I’m delighted you’re getting better luck meeting up with the deer. I love the different shades of olive, green and brown in the first picture.

  2. the light was low and the flash went off when I took that one – I had been messing with the settings, normally flash is turned off. I might try the flash again for looking into the wood.

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