Tag: roe deer

Roe Deer and Hoar Frost

pen and wash woodland sketch

No mud this morning, the ground is frozen solid and the leaf litter and debris on the paths crunch like gravel as we walk up through the woodland of Emroyd Common. Hoar frost crystals have formed in a few patches in sheltered spots alongside a hedgerow and there are ferny patterns on car windscreens.

roe deer and buzzard sketches

Two roe deer trot along at the edge of a pasture along the top edge of the wood.

For several days as we passed the houses at the top end of our lane, I’ve been scanning around to see if there was a buzzard or red kite circling. As we were beginning to suspect, it is actually a starling giving what to me seems like a passable impersonation of a buzzard mewing.

As we walk back through Emroyd we disturb a buzzard, which flies off down the slope through the oak woodland.

Saltholme

Saltholme

We took a break at the RSPB Saltholme wetlands reserve on our way to, and back from, Northumberland last week. The panoramic windows of the first floor cafe look out over one of the lagoons, so we were watching dunlin, godwits and gadwall as we ate our lunch.

gadwall

On the return journey the birding highlight was a pectoral sandpiper a migrant that was a long way off course as it headed south as it breeds in Arctic Canada.

pectoral sandpiper

To the south east Roseberry Topping makes a craggy a punctuation in the looming bulk of the North York Moors.

Roseberry Topping and the Hanger Bridge
Roseberry Topping and the Transporter (not Hanger) Bridge

Roe Deer Rutting

roe deer

On our way north along the M1 near Garforth we glimpsed two roe deer standing facing each other in a large stubble field. As we drove by they clashed antlers (10.20 a.m., 15 September).