Polly Pullar celebrates Britain’s native deer
Polly Pullar shares some fascinating facts about these shy and beautiful wild creatures.
YOU might be surprised to learn that we only have two native species of deer in the UK: the red and the roe. Roe deer males are called bucks, females are does and their offspring are fawns.
Red deer males are called stags, females are hinds and their offspring are calves.
The other types of deer found in the UK – fallow, sika, muntjac and Chinese water deer – were all introduced.
The red deer is our largest land mammal, while the elegant roe is far smaller by comparison, and also has very different antler formation and natural history.
Currently, numbers of both species are at an all-time high.
The main reason for this is our milder winters.
Fewer deer succumb to starvation and there are therefore fewer natural deaths.
Unlike most other wildlife, deer are better able to adapt to life alongside humans.
Roe deer, in particular, have spread into the urban environment.
The Latin name for the roe deer is Capreolus capreolus – “the little goat”. Like goats, roe deer are certainly agile and athletic, but it seems perhaps a bit derogatory for one so beautiful.
The Spanish have a far prettier nickname for the roe deer – el Fantasma del bosque, “the ghost of the forest”.
As roe deer are adept at vanishing in an instant, it seems perfectly fitting.
I think it is fair to say that the roe fawn is probably one of the loveliest of all wild babies.
With large dark eyes edged with dense black, and their perfect, elegant form, they are glorious.
Sadly, these enchanting young deer are occasionally picked up by wellintentioned members of the public and taken to rescue centres.
Roe deer don’t make good pets, and handreared roe bucks can be highly dangerous.
Roe bucks shed their antlers in October and grow new ones during the winter.
The antler is an extraordinary miracle of nature and is the fastestgrowing mammalian tissue of all.
A layer of protective velvet shields the vulnerable new growth, and it is eventually shed as the buck rubs against undergrowth and branches.
Roe deer, unlike red deer, frequently give
birth to twins, especially in areas of lush feeding. For the first week of their lives, a doe spends much of the day browsing away from her young and comes back at regular intervals to suckle them.
Camouflaged with their magnificent spotted coats, the fawns lie motionless, awaiting her return, hidden in the long grasses.
It is on these occasions in May and June that a dog walker perhaps stumbles upon them and is under the impression that they are abandoned.
In nearly all cases, they should be left alone.
Sometimes, scared by dogs or people, they may break away and the pair becomes separated, usually with disastrous results.
Even tiny fawns can run like the wind.
The roe deer rut – mating season – takes place in July and August.
Roe deer are different from red deer and have delayed implantation, meaning that the fawns do not start to develop inside the womb until January.
They will usually be born some time in May or June.
As hormone levels start to rise, young frustrated bucks fray the bark of trees with their antlers. This is also part of the way they mark their territory.
They often do much damage, and the tree may die as a result of being ring-barked and stripped.
Even a buck with small antlers can do severe damage.
Coupled with the fact that they nip off the valuable shoots of young trees, this is why deer come into conflict with foresters and gardeners.
During the summer, it is sometimes possible to find large circles of flattened grass where a buck has been chasing a doe.
You can also find small roe-deer-shaped areas and droppings where they have been lying peacefully in the daytime.
I have been brought numerous tiny fawns over the years and many have not survived.
The ones that have made it have successfully been returned to the wild if they didn’t become too tame.
Though roe are not gregarious like red deer, it is far better to rear fawns with others of a similar age.
In the past, when I worked in a zoo in England, we used to raise the fawns brought to us by members of the public, and having a few together helped them retain their wildness.
Once they were off bottle feeds, we put them into a large, densely vegetated enclosure and did not handle them any further. Then they could be released.
I had a pet roe doe for many years, but when I receive tiny roe fawns, I usually pass them on to the team at the Scottish SPCA to be reared with others.
As I mentioned earlier, hand-reared bucks that have lost their inherent fear of humans may become dangerous, especially during the rutting season.
There are far too many instances of them causing injury to people and dogs.
When hand-rearing a wild animal or bird, it often becomes “imprinted” on the person acting as a substitute parent, and this is what can lead to problems.
We have lots of roe deer on the farm. They start to come into our garden as soon as we get hard weather.
Usually, in February and March, they concentrate on their gardening efforts.
We have to cover the round ivy bush at the top of the garden steps, otherwise our resident buck, nicknamed “the head gardener”, eats the lot!
Sometimes I look out of my office window down on to the garden and see a buck, or a doe on occasion, happily chewing the cud underneath the crab apple trees in the orchard.
When there is snow on the ground, they relish the crab apples.
They are often joined by flocks of fieldfares, redwings, mistle thrushes and blackbirds who join the winter apple fest.
I have long since given up trying to stop the deer from “helping” with the horticulture.
Ours is a garden for nature, and I am set on working with it, not against it!