Guess what i saw today

[Beekeeper]

Driving along the B3054 Brockenhurst to Beaulieu road this moring at around 10 am, i the distance i could see a deer close to the edge of the road on the moor.

As i got close to it it was obviously a lone Fallow buck with a beautiful set of antlers, he almost ran acrosd the road in front of me but stopped right at the edge for a short while before turning and trotting off across the moor.

Now the interesting bit, the Fallow buck was black!!

Actually not strictly true, more of a charcoal colour all except the rear end which was the usual white.

In all the years i have lived in the forest, (My lifetime) i have never seen anything like this before, as usual no camera to provide the evidence.

Anyone aware of variations in colour apart from albino.

Ian

[fairplay]

Melanistic deer are common where I live, and probably where you live too.

Neil.

[Keith Talbot]

Fallow Deer come in a variety of colours including Black,ive certainly not seen a black one in the Forest,

Im sure Si (Deer Stalker) will be able to tell us if there are any, of course at this time of year they will start to grow winter coats which can get very dark to the appearance.

Keith

[Deer Stalker]

Yep, there are plenty of Melanistic Fallow on the Forest. There are also plenty of Menil (lighter coloured which tend to keep thier spots durning winter & have a brown tail stripe & rump patch border) & a few variations in between.

[Tracey.A]

I envy you, 'cos I've never ever seen one.

Tracey

[Dutchess]

I'm with Tracey, I am feeling quite envious. A black deer...beautiful!

D.

[thebeard]

There's a couple which hang about at wollaton park in Nottingham.. not wild, though still nice to see

[Beekeeper]

Thanks for the replies confirming what i saw, i have never ever heard of a black deer in the forest and it was a real suprise, my brother thought it might have been a Sika as they are a bit darker but also they a quite a big bit heavier so i ruled out the sighting as being a Sika.

Regards everyone

Ian

[Deer Stalker]

Hi Ian,

Fallow bucks are bigger than Sika stags. Were the antlers branched like a Red deer or were they flat/palmate?

[Elean0r]

There are often lone Sika between Brockenhurst and Beaulieu, or between Lymington and Beaulieu, as well as quite large groups of them.

With your experience I can't imagine you would confused Sika with Fallow Deer because they're so different in size, but when they're on their own the scale is different.

I hope you see it again, and have your camera with you