Ingham’s W RLD
BENNY Hill has plenty of critics in these politically correct days but after what I saw at the weekend I wonder if he was a keen student of nature. Just as my family was settling down to watch TV, I glanced out of the window and there, guzzling on some windfall apples in my garden, was a female roe deer.
I live in the countryside – only just, about half a mile from suburbia’s fringe – so spotting our very own “doe a deer, a female deer” wandering out of the woods isn’t that unusual.
But as our doe-eyed friend was feasting on the fruit a big brute suddenly loomed up round the apple tree. Judging by his antlers he was a youngish buck and apples were the last thing on his mind.
He was so excited practically snorting.
This is where Benny Hill comes in. The female set off with the buck in hot pursuit – except she was as coy as a deer can be. This was a very carefully choreographed kiss chase.
Instead of bounding off as if chased by Beelzebub she ambled along, wiggling her bottom and occasionally looking back to make sure the buck was still interested.
This went on for 15 lust-filled minutes. The buck chased her round and round a big fir tree, round and round our swing seat, up and down the lawn, back round the apple trees and round the fir tree and the swing seat again, into the bushes, back out again, off round the lawn again, so close his nose was on her bottom.
It was like watching Benny Hill’s trademark sketch when he chases scantily clad nurses around a park with the film speeded up.
But then the buck did something Benny never did on camera. The doe stopped and the buck did what bucks do best – right in front of us. To mix the comedians, it was an “Oh Matron” moment.
Blink and we would have missed it. Roe deer bucks are clearly not lotharios. The deed done, the stag stood guard just in case any love rivals were close.
And the doe? No post-coital ciggy for her. She celebrated by eating our flowers. So that’s where our roses have gone.
Just as we thought the show was over, the Benny Hill routine began again. All that was missing was his theme tune. We’ll be looking out for the fawns next spring. he was
ONCE you see a bird for the first time you never stop seeing it. At Devon’s Seaton Wetlands reserve near Axmouth I spotted my first water rail, a secretive relative of the moorhen. The next day I saw three in a minute including a youngster. You wait 50 years for a water rail to turn up and then three come at once. A nightjar has flown 600 miles in a week searching for a mate. A tag fitted to the African summer visitor by York University near Doncaster tracked him south to Cambridgeshire, on to Norfolk, west to Milton Keynes, the Severn Valley and Birmingham and back to Yorkshire. But his lust is unrequited. For him love is not in the air. MAN’S best friend is descended from wolves domesticated in Europe up to 40,000 years ago, US researchers claim. DNA tests on two prehistoric dogs showed they were similar to modern pooches and there was no evidence of a mass influx of dogs tamed in Asia, reports Nature Communications. Modern dog-lovers and Stone Age man have more in common than you thought. GREEN TIP: Save fuel by removing top boxes when you’re not using them. It will reduce a car’s drag. WEATHER permitting we will enjoy nature’s most spectacular firework displays tonight and tomorrow night. The peak of the annual Perseid Meteor Shower will unleash up to 30 shooting stars an hour as we pass through the tail of the Swift-Tuttle comet. So pray for a break in the showers and then look to the heavens. LEFTOVER fruit and coffee grounds could make the world a prettier place. Biochemist Terence Chung, 31, from High Wycombe, Bucks, has won the Formation Company’s 2017 Entrepreneur Award for his scheme to turn waste products into vegan lippy and the like. So much better if food waste contributes to beauty rather than ugly landfill sites.