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Originally Posted by Pete Collins  Thanks again for the 'heads up' Barry. The third section of tonights episode was at the Ashridge Estate which is in my 'patch' - in fact I'm probably going walking there on Saturday. So I'd have been really annoyed if I'd missed it.
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Due to various reasons (mainly laziness and inclement weather) I didn't go for my walk round the Ashridge estate until yesterday. It's about a 15-mile walk, all round Ashridge and the adjoining Berkhamsted Common (mainly within the NT's Ashridge estate) and including Ivinghoe Beacon and Pitstone Hill. It's a great walk which I've done several times before. The time before last, I saw six groups of
Fallow Deer (totalling over a hundred deer in all). This time I only saw a total of about 20 deer, but had the closest view of a large buck (I think male
Fallow Deer are called bucks rather than stags?) that I have ever had.
I saw it run across the path about 50 yards in front of me - when I got there I looked in the direction it had gone, not expecting to see anything as they usually run off and disappear when they see a human. To my surprise I first saw a hind about 50 yards away, and then noticed the big buck only 30-35 yards away, staring straight back at me! I guess it was acting braver than normally because it's the rutting season - I took a couple of quick snaps and then moved on. Sorry for the poor quality of the much-cropped image.
I wondered if this buck might have been one of the stars from the piece on
Nature's Calendar but as there are supposed to be 800 deer on the Ashridge Estate it probably wasn't. Later on I saw two more large bucks, or rather just their heads and antlers above the intervening bracken. I saw one of them eating leaves from a low branch. I also came across a young buck standing in the path maybe 30 yards in front of me - it had its back to me, but when I tried to get my camera out, the noise of the velcro on my camera pouch alerted it to my presence and it was off.
I had a nice view of a
Fox, too!