Oh deer!
I must admit to somewhat ambivalent feelings towards deer. It is marvellous to see any of our large mammals in the wild, free to roam the countryside despite increased urbanisation and the tendency to 'tidy up' the wilder parts of our environment. Deer populations have certainly increased in recent years with the abandoned market gardens on the steep slopes of the Tamar Valley, re-wilded by neglect rather than design providing ideal cover during the daytime. And with new suburban estates extending out to the margins of the protected wooded valleys of the Plym, the chance of seeing deer within the city boundary has increased, as many early commuters will have noticed. Spotting a deer in the early hours munching away at the rose bush a few metres from the back door, finding tulips devoid of their flowers, beans and even sweet potato vines inside a polytunnel stripped of their leaves from the ground up, leaves me feeling less than charitable towards them! I'm sure that most local gardeners or farmers will have their own story to relate of deer entering their land.
The roe deer is the species most commonly encountered locally, although fallow deer are becoming more frequent. In summer it is relatively easy to distinguish the species; the roe deer is uniformly reddish brown, the fallow is a similar colour but paler underneath and with distinguishing spots on the back and flanks, and tends to be more variable with both darker and lighter and even white forms. Male fallows carry broad-bladed 'palmate' horns while in comparison those of the roe are short and spiked. But later in autumn and over winter when they are easier to see, both lose their horns and are an overall dull grey-brown colour, and therefore more difficult to distinguish from each other although the roe is much smaller. As you see a deer disappearing into the undergrowth a plain white rump will tell you it’s a roe deer, while a white rump with a dark halo and a long tail will belong to a fallow. Detailed guides and photos are available online but I hope these brief sketches may help if the view you get is unexpected and fleeting (as is often the case).
Roe have been in the country since the last ice-age, while fallow arrived with the Normans when many 'deer parks' such as that at Mount Edgecumbe were established. Their larger relative, the red deer is another true native with long established Devon herds on Exmoor and at Haldon near Exeter. However they do travel throughout the county and have been recorded everywhere except the South Hams; size alone should be enough for their identification (think of a small pony, chest high to a human adult). Their breeding period, the autumn rut, has been well documented on BBC's Autumn Watch. The ruts of the fallow and roe are on a less dramatic scale during July and August (roe) or autumn (fallow). Outside of the breeding season the male and female roe and fallow communicate with a short sharp bark often when they are disturbed.
Three other species, all oriental in origin, are now living wild in the UK: muntjac, sika and Chinese water deer. Of these the shy knee-high muntjac is the only one to have a foothold in the South West, but judging by their habit of concealing themselves in the undergrowth when I have seen them in Norfolk and Oxford, there could easily be more than we are aware of and could become established locally. One to watch out for!
We do need to consider the potential problem that an expanding population of deer may bring. Indeed there may already be more around than is sustainable without damage to crops and woodland. I personally would not like to see a cull. Maybe we should consider reintroducing some of the large predators that controlled their numbers in the past centuries before they were eliminated. As it feeds almost entirely on deer, the European Lynx would be an ideal candidate, and controlled trials have been proposed. They are so shy most of us would never know they were around. Just something to think about for the future!
Pete Mayston