I do like your photos of the various Deer- Fallow are a particular favourite of mine. The doe in the foreground looks like a 'menil' -this colour phase is yellowish and keeps the spots throughout the year. Most of the others are either the black phase or the 'common spotted' which goes a mulberry shade in winter, as here. I'm not sure which but think they are the common spotted. Were they spotted or black in summer?
Pleased you like the photos Pertinax. I like Fallow Deer too - I was very pleased with the smallish herd at Wetlands when I visited in 2010. Most of the Flamingo specimens were spotted. I'll have to go back a few months and post a couple of pictures from the summer of 1999 (I'll do it in a few days time when I have the chance to scan some more photos).
Just remembered, I have an antler from one of the bucks still at the zoo in September 2001 - a friend and I were there for keeper for a day and one of the bucks got something wrapped around his antlers, so Matt Brash was called. He sawed off the antlers and we were given them as souvenirs of our day.
Just remembered, I have an antler from one of the bucks still at the zoo in September 2001 - a friend and I were there for keeper for a day and one of the bucks got something wrapped around his antlers, so Matt Brash was called. He sawed off the antlers and we were given them as souvenirs of our day.
Yes, I thought they were- they are the same colour as the wild ones in the New Forest- dark 'Mulberry' in winter and chestnut with spots in summer. (known as 'common spotted'). The 'menil' yellowish doe in the f.g. would get even paler in summer and the horseshoe marks around the tail get very faint.
I always watch them wild in the New Forest. A year or so back during the Rut, I saw a young buck that was trailing about ten yards of what looked like white plastic tape tangled round one antler- I wonder if he got tangled up with it somewhere and died, or got rid of it.
Lucky you! The only time I have been in the New Forest was in 1980 whilst staying in Cashmoor (population 14 per the roadside sign) with my parents so we could visit my godparents in Blandford Forum. We visited the forest on several occasions and I fell in love with the Fallow Deer. (On that holiday I also got to stand outside Poole Park Zoo and to visit Marwell.)
The Deer population in Southern England (at least) has exploded in recent years. They have always carefully managed(culled) numbers within the boundaries of the New Forest itself but outside it is apparently becoming a problem in some areas. There's a big wood/small forest called Bentley Wood near Salisbury where you can see Purple Emperor butterflies in July, and there are certainly masses of Fallow in there!
Not that it is of any relevance really other than I like to get things right, this morning it struck me that my godparents lived in Pimperne near Blandford Forum! Back to the Deer, I wish we had Fallows around here. I like seeing Roes, but I prefer Fallows.
Fallow is my favourite of the British deer species(both endemic and introduced). They are IMO the most attractive if not the most graceful too.(You can argue for Roe Deer also on that)
