Humber Marsh Deer

Part I - Buck

I followed a path through the trees, past a deserted hobo campfire with its scattered rubbish, to an opening at the edge of the marsh. There I found a buck moving through the shoulder-high green of new rushes.

The buck had a rusty hide with the white under-tail showing at back and new antlers growing in front. The antlers were still covered in velvet; the skin that would peel away in fall, exposing hardened, mature antlers. The buck had a long, powerful neck that curved gracefully as it raised its head to graze on some willow leaves above it.

It wasn’t long before the buck became aware of me. There is no mistaking when a deer becomes aware of your presence; the head turns and the nose, eyes and tall, rabbit-like ears all focus in your direction. It then moved off deeper into the marsh and I lost sight of it behind the tall rushes.

I decided to see where it was going and, as I followed, I would occasionally get glimpses of the buck a distance up ahead where it stopped to graze. Eventually, his tracks through the marsh led me to a trail where it looked like two more deer had joined him.

Part II - The Does

The deer tracks led in single-file around a bluff with a creek behind it and then seemed to disappear. It was puzzling until I looked up at the sheer embankment beside me and saw a mark that looked like a hoof-scrape about ten feet up. Could they have...? I wondered.

Looking higher, their hoofs-marks showed again on the hard soil in two or three more places above me. It’s easy to forget the athleticism, the fitness, of wild animals but they had cleared this tall embankment, easily forty-feet high, in just a few leaps.

I climbed the embankment, almost a wall, and found their tracks again at the top. The trail led through thickety woods and I caught up with the herd in the scrub bushes beside a meadow. The buck had been joined by two does; an older one, presumably the mother, and a younger one, perhaps his sister.

The does were grazing contentedly in the bushes and, as I took some photos, they turned to gaze at me for a moment. Deciding I meant no harm, they lowered their heads and continued to browse through the scrub trees.

They had lovely, big, alert eyes, bigger in proportion to their faces than that of the buck, and the same lively, swivelling ears that tilted independently, scooping-in sound from every direction.

It was a familiar feeling to me now, especially with deer, to be allowed to observe them as though they understood somehow that I was not a threat. They can sense threat and, I believe, they can sense peaceful delight and curiosity in seeing them.

I know from diving on coral reefs that your heart-rate, breathing and mood has an instant impact on the fish around you. I think too that it is a factor in nature observation on land as well; with birds and mammals.

After I’d taken some photos, I didn’t want to alarm them by being too intrusive so thanked them silently and left them to ruminate in their field of bushes.

How to get down off the ridge I’d followed them up was the next challenge. I know how people can get turned around and lost in the woods. There are no grids. Nothing in nature follows a straight line. I could always retrace my steps, I thought, but instead I decided to push forward through the wood, to follow my instincts and see what else there was to see. The trail leads on…