Deer oh Deer!

This beautiful roe deer…

… gave birth to this tiny kid in the hay meadow at Elmet Farmhouse in early June 2016

Mother and child doing well – here’s the kid having a feed

And this is where it all happened – in the long grass of our hay meadow – with the backdrop of Heptonstall and Stoodley Pike. You can see just see the hind in the field on the lower right….

And here she is leaping through the buttercups and sorrel, circling round protectively while her kid is curled up in the grass

Getting down with the kids!

As if 2016 wasn’t good enough, in 2017 our resident roe deer hind produced twins and in 2018  we were blessed with triplets. Presumably it’s the same hind who has returned, or possibly one of her grown-up kids. Either way, she clearly feels at home in the hay meadows at Elmet Farmhouse as she has chosen to  establish her nursery here again.

We spotted the twins in early June 2017 among the long grass with their mother but at that stage they were hard to see. It wasn’t until the hay  was cut in mid July that we were able to take some photographs in the late evening sunshine at the bottom of the field near our newly-planted trees.

The images from late May 2018 show one of the new-born triplets curled up in a ball. Another photograph taken a few weeks later shows how the kid has grown.

Roe Deer

Roe deer are regularly spotted in the wooded valleys around Hebden Bridge, especially early in the morning, sometimes venturing into the hilltop meadows or up onto the moors. The stags have small antlers and, when alarmed, they make a loud barking noise that echoes for miles around. These photographs were taken in Crimsworth Dean and Hardcastle Crags.

© Photos copyright Lesley Jackson and Ian Fishwick