10 years of deer watching 1992-2002
Stephen Wilkinson 22 Cheviot Drive, Chelmsford, Essex CM1 2EU
On the 23rd April 1992 a deer was seen and was to be the first record in tire book for Nightingale
Wood. It was a 4.30am start that morning a bike ride up the lane, past the pub and down the
track to the river. From now on I have to have the wind right and no noise, it's at times like
this when you find out just how many dry leaves and small dead sticks are laying in your path
just waiting to be snapped and crunched underfoot.
I have found out over the years that at times Fallow Deer will allow close contact. If they are
familiar with people on footpaths moving through their territory and they have the advantage
of a retreat and they are a tad curious. You are not going to pat one on the head but I have
seen a twelve year old boy twenty metres away from a young fallow buck, they stood facing
each other the deer plonking its front foot up and down and grunting, the boy doing the same
but taking a step forward each time. The distance was down to about fifteen metres when the
deer spun on its heals and crashed off through the trees, grunting as it went. On another day
the deer can see through walls and disappear into thin air.
I had been to Nightingale Wood the day before and seen the fresh slots at the place where the
deer cross the ditch to enter the wood, so 1 knew the place to be. Sure enough on looking
across the field a single Fallow buck was walking towards me returning to the wood after a
night feeding. It had shed its antlers recently as you could see the raw ends on the pedicles.
This deer was from the old school, one whiff of me and it was gone.
When this story got back to my then ten year old we had to go find some more. So the next
Sunday morning six o'clock on the bikes and up the road, this time towards another local
wood Bushy Wood. We had just past the Tin Chapel and Chobbing's farm when we had four
Fallow does standing in the road. I had lived in tire area for twenty years and only seen slots
and heard sounds of large departing beasts through thick cover but never seeing a thing.
These deer had been crossing the road and only stopped to see if we are friend or foe. They
decided foe and left. We continued on our way to another wood, us stalkers. The wood is
called Blatches and seven Fallow does lay out in a grass field next to the wood, where we
watched them ruminating for a while. We did go on to another wood but no joy there, so
returned to Blatches to see the deer entering the wood. We had been out for a couple of
hours, seen eleven deer within two miles of home and Geoff thought I was the great deer
hunter - for that day anyway and it was the start of many years discovery about the local deer.
The records started to flow, 99 in that May in groups between 1 and 8. Most of these sightings
came from the Writtle Forest with others from Pepper's Green, Oxney Green and Roxwell:
95 Fallow (91 docs 4, bucks) and 4 Muntjac. This deer, the Grey Squirrel of the ungulate
world, has made its home in all corners of the county. It has been pulled out of the mud on
the Dengie, out of railings in Chelmsford town centre and seen on the Holland-on-Sea beach.
Essex Field Club Newsletter No. 45, September 2004
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