Kitchen Garden Forum

After the rut by tigerburnie, on Flickr

Had a trip to the local Glen looking for wildlife.

Glad you found some, Burnie….an impressive beast!

The only deer we seem to see round here are muntjac and sadly they,re often found dead in a country lane, being scavenged on by the local kite population

That's sad ? I get the little blighters making holes through the (wire) allotment fence to eat my veg. I would do better taking a shotgun to the plot rather than a trug !

We have started getting deer around here if you seen we’re I lived you would be amazed as I am my grandoughter disturbed one when she was out walking it must be two years ago she says it was a red deer I’ve known about them for about 8 years but the guy who showed me the photos he had taken swore me to keep it quiet as we have all type of hunters living around here

The camera moving on the tripod is one thing I have to fix when using a long lens at distant, but the images are ok, just a bit wobbly.

Well I,m sure some would be glad to see the extinction of these creatures. We used to have a vineyard on the outskirts of our village. Particularly as it approached harvest time the deer would still intrude through the extensive wire fencing erected to pillage the grapes. The damage got so serious I understand the vineyard owner applied to have a "shotgun type"sound deterrent system installed but I understand the planning authorities turned it down on the grounds it would disturb the neighbour.

So if you,re a commercial enterprise growing food for a living , I can understand why probably the best view of these creatures for some is dead on the road, killed by a car and being scavaged by a kite. Sadly humans and wildlife don't always mix well when there is competition for the same territory.

In the case of Muntjac, they were accidentally introduced by escape from Woburn abbey grounds, near to OH and I, so we have quite enough of them around here !

Deer have been allowed to get to large numbers or in the case of Red Deer, encouraged to get to unsustainable levels to make it easier to take folk out and shoot them. In Scotland there are now some large culls of deer, the shops are full of venison at quite cheap prices too. Since man removed their predators, some wild animals do need their numbers controlling and along with introducing non native species, we are upsetting natures balance.

We always interfere….even when some are trying to help…I can see Beavers becoming the next big problem, then culling will have to take place!

It's a bit of a sticky situation we have got ourselves into with all the foreign introductions & now re-introductions. The re-introductions should be here, but I kinda think those involved just immediately zoomed into their last known habitat without factoring in any changes in that environment over the time they were away, especially in regards to farming & housing nearby.

As for the foreign introductions I'm not too keen on the Panthers around our area. (Apparently some badly worded government advice in the 60's about no private zoos meant they were released, not sent back to their homeland or euthanised). I've been face to face with one; OK on the plot with the fence & hedge row between us, but was not expected on a sunny evening. Luckily as it was a bit heavy footed & heard it & it's rumble & just froze as wrong, just stared at me & walked on. There are a few around the New Forest where they can find kills that are a bit tastier than me. Interesting to look it up online to see their spread around the UK with reported sightings & kills confirmed.

oldherbaceous wrote: ↑Sun Nov 12, 2023 5:39 pm We always interfere….even when some are trying to help…I can see Beavers becoming the next big problem, then culling will have to take place!

It already is

The problem with re-wilders is they lack patience and spray animals about like confetti in places where the habitat is unsuitable. I had hoped after the botched Sea Eagle introductions where the "perfect place" decided by the dim if well meaning Roy Dennis was letting them go. They promptly left for better places and have never colonised the first release site to this day. Beavers will have a place in modern Britain, but it will not be in every river/lake/pond/old gravel pit in the land, they need food and peace away from people and in particular dog walkers and folk on the water in canoes or on paddle boards, those were not in the habitat when Beavers last lived here.

There must surely be some wider consequences of the introduction of red kites. They seem very successful, they have quickly become the most common large bird you see.

Red Kites are primarily scavengers with small feet that are unsuited to hunting, this actually means they are doing us a service removing roadkill or other corpses from the land, unlike Sea Eagles, that are very much hunters and there are some serious conflicts happening in Scotland that will no doubt soon begin in the rest of the UK.