by Colin Elford
It is time for the monthly dormouse-box check. Three young sparrowhawk fledglings flutter around me as I examine the boxes, their calls similar to those of a lost roe kid. I manage to get glimpses of them only through the dappled shade of the pines. When you reach the tree where you last heard them call, they pause and remain silent.
Whenever you have to lie in wait for a bird or animal in hiding to move or fly, our human nature dictates that we are always the first to lose patience and concentration, never the creature who is trying to avoid detection.
Today I set the alarm clock far too early. I load the dogs and turn the truck off the hill. As I do, large numbers of moths scatter from my headlights.
Above, a flickering light around the base of a dark ribbon of cloud that runs the course of the hill suddenly fires out a streak of summer lightning; the hill and its slopes show themselves to me for a split second and then are plunged back into obscurity. I wind the window down, willing and expecting the thunder, but it doesn’t come. The moist, warm morning air gives me a clue to the forthcoming day’s weather: expectations of a humid day.
I open the barrier to the wood, scanning the clear fell from the side of the truck. The tops of the small young pine stretch out above a ground mist that hovers over the wet heath. I get the feeling I’m being watched and turn around to see the unmistakable outline of a fox; it stares hard, motionless like everything else on the restock.
The morning light is coming slowly as I drive carefully down the gravel track, looking from side to side and trying to keep myself out of the ditches. Movement catches my eye. I pull over and scan a narrow rack, where a pair of courting roe are unaware that their seasonal love dance is being observed. She stops, he advances. She resumes the chase, he follows.
I reach into the truck, unsleeve the rifle, load and slowly mount it on my sticks. As the pair come into view again, I glass the buck – a reasonable middle age. The sun’s crept across the rack, as the panting pair bathe in the light, their coats shining glossy fox-red. I unload the rifle, and the clatter of metal on metal alerts them to my presence. They both stare expectantly. I call to the doe, as though she will understand: ‘Don’t worry, I won’t shoot your lover!’
I don’t have much hope of getting a roe buck this morning. The small wood is surrounded by maize on three sides. Deer can become invisible for a good part of the year in this form of cover.
On the outside of the wood, mature unbrashed Douglas firs at head height with dry, sharp, dead branches guard the exterior. On the forest floor dessicated needles on bare ground make sure every step is audible from metres away. In the very centre of this block, a thick band of hazel of various ages surrounded by a wall of rhododendrons defends the interior. The sun has yet to rise.
Creeping on my hands and knees I make it to the second line of trees within the boundary of the field. Brittle, dead branches scrape my face and neck, cobwebs irritate me by fixing their itchy webs across my lips to my ears – each one has to be removed, necessitating extra movement. All this could bring me to the attention of a sly roe buck concerned with not being seen.
Entering a very small glade and trying to make the best of a bad job, I decide to wait. Walking makes too much of a racket. I will wait and allow a better light to develop before giving a call in the hope of attracting a buck. I look at my watch as the first rays of sunlight hit the bark of the tree next to me. It is 5.15 a.m. The red glow slides slowly up the coarse trunk of the Douglas; the light looks like a fire that’s been allowed to burn down just before bedtime – a bright crimson encased in a pale yellow halo.
After making such a noisy entrance I decide to let the wood settle down and find its own rhythm again. Squirrels occasionally bend branches around me in the poor light, then release them with a swoosh, like monkeys in a rainforest, in their search for hazelnuts. If you listen to the wood on a very dry, still morning, you can hear many things: squirrels in the canopy cracking hazelnuts, the discarded shells falling to the forest floor; a badger scraping up litter for bedding deep in the rhododendron bush; even mice and shrews moving under the surface of the forest floor, which for them is an ocean of parched leaves and needles. I listen to the high-pitched squeaks of a pair of shrews, fighting only feet from me, yet unseen from where I sit by a large Douglas fir. It always fascinates me how silent mammals can be, and how close they can get to us before we even notice them.
A roe doe, deep in her summer coat of fox red, is just manoeuvring herself under a low branch. As she ducks her head the activity catches my attention. She looks round, alert, in my direction. My rifle is ready, resting on my cross-sticks, my elbow wedged into the gnarled bark of the tree. I half expect a buck to follow, so I peer beyond the doe into the gap in the rhododendrons through which she first entered the glade. Nothing.
From the corner of my eye I study the doe’s progress as she passes me, but her body language tells me she is on her own and unaware of my presence. Then the wind changes direction slightly and I hear the click of her hooves as she bounds back to the rhododendrons where she first appeared. After a time the wood falls silent again.
When I glance at my watch it is 5.45 a.m. I pull my deer call from a leg pocket in my trousers, check the time again through habit, then call. The sound is similar to that of a young sparrowhawk. I hope to make the call sound more like a doe on heat – I give two low calls and leave it at that.
Deer can come running to a call, suddenly bursting through the brush, or race straight towards the sound, pinpointing its direction from a good distance away. Or nothing happens. If you don’t wait at least fifteen minutes after the call it’s not worth making. Half an hour is even better, but human patience quickly wears thin. You start to get fidgety, you swipe at an occasional fly, or lean the rifle against the nearest tree.
I’ve been here twenty minutes, standing in silence, when I hear the buck, just moments before I see him. It’s incredible how alert you suddenly become, and how quickly your senses tune in. An exhausted exhale, almost asthmatic, with an occasional whine, similar to an athlete after a long race, is the only way I can describe the sound of a curious buck searching. This one is oblivious to me, bewitched by the scent on the wind that he pursues with flared nostrils. Judgement of this buck has to be made in seconds, for soon, like the doe, he too will wind me.
He enters the glade swiftly and passes the area I’ve identified as one suitable for a safe shot. As he weaves his way towards me, I notice another place that the doe passed which would also suffice. Selecting this area with the cross-hairs of the scope I shout to the buck to stop him. The word ‘Morning!’ has no effect; I call again, this time louder, trying to break his trance. It works. With a confused look on his face he stops, pausing long enough for me to place the shot.
I feel a pang of guilt in the silence after the shot, for finishing him before he had a chance to spread his seed. I respect and love deer but try not to become too sensitive, because if I were to think about the task too much, then I might not want to do it. And I remind myself again that culling plays only a small part in coexistence, in the bond that holds between myself and the deer.
‘I bet you know the woods like the back of your hand.’ I’ve had that said to me a few times. There are times when I think I do, but in the woods you are always learning and, just when you start to get cocky, something happens that soon puts you back in your place.
This afternoon I want to transverse an area I hardly frequent: it’s too hilly for stalking and the rutted ground makes for miserable walking. All morning I have been collecting my hoppers and loading them into the truck, ready to empty, clean and store them away until next season. Finishing at 2.30 p.m. is an awkward time – too late to start anything new, and with no rifle on board I am not prepared for stalking. I decide the time will be best spent exploring this area; I have seen a very good roe buck near by and want to have a better look if possible.
The region is suitable for nesting raptors, and, with chicks calling, it would be an ideal t
ime to find nest sites that I can map for the future. But now my dogs wind a deer in some bracken, and when I see him I wish I had my rifle. A poor-headed yearling stands only yards away, watching me and the dogs pass. I tip my hat and wish him good day – our paths will meet again.
As I walk further the trees change from softwood to hardwood ash and sycamore. Further in, I find an old boundary consisting of an earthen bank hedge, with mixed hazel and field maple abounding, running the ridge of the bank. I clamber down to a place I have never been to before, pushing myself under a patch of blackthorn.
The ancient boundary hedge finishes on a small ridge. Haloing above this understorey of mature scrub, and towering to the clouds, is a magnificent old beech. I touch its bark, walking around it and feeling the scars that have been inflicted in past years. Standing back I attempt to read an inscription: it gives a name and is signed ‘Egypt, 1914’. I run my fingers over the scarring again, wondering how an Egyptian had come across this tree, in a wood in Wiltshire. And what made him carve his name and birthplace?
Around the base of this great specimen are the beds and scrapes where my big buck rests – I have found his home. I expect he’s standing unseen, looking down from the ridge, watching my movements through his kingdom. I’ve heard it said that some wildlife roam in a sweeping radial arc, as if at the end of a lead, always returning to the stake in the centre.
I find it astonishing that animals who, by nature, try to remain elusive to man, such as deer and even fox, can pronounce their presence in a territory so clearly that they are as good as dead if hunted by a person with practised eyes. This instinct to remain in a familiar place, their own domain, can often be their downfall. This buck would be safe from me for a good few years yet, and like all old bucks I will see him only very occasionally, more through chance encounter than hunter’s skill.
A large crescent-shaped shadow cast itself slowly across the top of the sunlit down. Looking out from inside my truck on to the hill, every scrubby bush, field edge and boundary fence is clearly lit by the sun. The sky is a heavenly blue interspersed with white woolly clouds: a perfect July day. It looks like it’s going to be the first dry day in weeks and I am going to make the most of it.
Time marches on, and the forest never stays the same. Today finds me heading for a site that has just been planted with small trees and where a problem has occurred: a middle-aged buck that I had previously left alone to live his life out here is now browsing heavily on the new young growth of treetops. Looking at the site is like reading an open book: all the signs are here, but I have yet to see him.
In fact I’d spotted the buck only once before, two years ago, at about this time of year, with 1 August fast approaching. I remember our chance meeting at dusk on that occasion. Back then this area was a lonely clear-fell site. The mature trees had only recently been cut and all the lop and top lay spread across the area, smashed and split, completely covering the ground. What were once pine branches festooned in bright green healthy needles now lay dismembered and scattered, turning rusty red, drying up and dying in the day’s sun. To a non-forestry person the area might resemble a bombsite. But to the initiated it was another welcome temporary open area for a future nightjar or woodlark to stake its territory and hopefully nest. It was actually my search for nightjars that had first drawn me to the place on the night I met the buck in the gloom of dusk. The site has since healed, and all the brash raked up by a slew and burnt in large heaps. Two years of colonizing vegetation have left their mark on the area, with tall grasses and sharp rushes in the wetter areas and heather and bracken on the dryer slopes. Unfortunately, the middle-aged buck with his appetite for the newly planted trees in the area has now become a problem, which I reluctantly have to deal with.
Within this part of the forest there are two grazing strips that a local farmer uses for his cattle, and I can imagine any rutting buck would make use of such a terrain. Close to the forest boundary is an area of heath, mire and small regenerating pine and birch that is owned by the MOD. The MOD ground and my forest block have masses of invasive, buck-hiding bracken.
It takes several hours to high prune a line of pine that will give me vision the length of the grazing strip, and, while I am pruning, the mosquitoes are feeding on me. When I finally finish, I push the high seat into place against a semi-mature Scots pine, and tie it off, my hands and ears burning from the insect bites.
When I’m halfway down the seat, I glimpse a pair of antlers gliding through the bracken, behind me in the forest crop. I slip down from the seat quietly and push the bracken away, leaving the two dogs sat at the foot of the seat, snapping at the irritating mosquitoes. Within the bracken I find scrapes in the mossy forest soil in small patches, a sure sign that I am in the buck’s home range. At some point our paths will meet. Getting back into the truck is a real joy; I close the windows and spend the next few minutes frantically scratching.
I return with bug spray the same night, but only catch sight of two fast-moving shadows crossing the grazing strip; it looks as though the buck is trying to stop a doe crossing on to the neighbouring ground.
The next two days I am busy with other things, but on the second evening, with the weather cooling, I try again. This time I see only a small fox creeping under the fence off the heath. As the light fades a drizzly rain starts, driving me from my perch. Returning to the truck I put the rifle away, pat the dogs for remaining quiet all night, start the engine and flick the headlights on only to see the buck leaping away into the dark forest crop.
The next day the alarm clock is set extra early, and I yawn all the way to the forest. Deciding to leave the truck a good distance from the seat, I walk to it as quietly as I can. And as I approach I can see the buck already out, sniffing the ground on the strip.
He has not noticed me, but I slink into the crop as I am far too exposed on the field, and I lose my view of him. I make it to the seat, but from my viewpoint I can’t see far enough down the field; he is hidden by one small branch, drooping from the the weight of the morning’s extra moisture. I call out into the early-morning air using a partially crumpled beech leaf from my coat pocket, but nothing happens.
After waiting ten minutes I convince myself the buck is working away from me rather than towards me. I scan around, then lower myself from the seat. The buck has gone. With the wind in my face I creep along a carpet of moss, following a ride that runs adjacent to the field edge. With every step I half expect the bracken to explode; this is close stalking, almost hand-to-hoof combat.
At the end of the track, half an hour later, I have seen nothing in the field or the crop, although if he were in the high bracken he would have been easy to stalk past.
At ten metres I have a glimpse of antler and then a shoulder; he stops, but with only the forest trees as a backstop I am unable to take the shot due to an unsafe background. He disappears.
Checking my watch I see it is nearly 6.00 a.m., and because of the wind direction I have to take the long route back around the woodland, or he will surely wind me. I slowly approach the seat again and climb up, glad to get away from the mosquitoes that are buzzing in my ears. It is now 7.00 a.m., and he will soon be thinking of going to bed, deep in the sea of bracken.
I keep as still as I can for another ten minutes, letting the forest settle down. Impatience gets the better of me, and my hand feels for the leaf call. I call and ready myself, and then I hear that typical low, wheezing grunt coming from the bracken. I can hear him but still I cannot see him; he remains under cover opposite me, on the MOD ground. The wheezing recedes. He is leaving.
The forest settles again, and I see and hear nothing other than a green woodpecker above me in the pine. Yet another ten minutes pass. I call again as a Dartford warbler sings from a branch of heather. The grunting starts again and I hear the sound of bracken being pushed aside. Then, suddenly, he is under the wire, broadside and still. The cross-hairs find him.
The forest is always changing, and although I take his life fo
r the health of the trees, his old territory will flourish and grow, becoming a future home to many more roe, and perhaps to his own sons too.
August
See a huge caterpillar today on the heather. Long, thick and green. It gives the appearance of having a series of black bands across its body though on closer inspection they are not bands but, rather, small, evenly spaced dark dots with minute lemon-white spots like stars within. I ask a friend about it, and they tell me it’s the larva of the emperor moth.
Today I watch a middle-aged roe buck getting amorous with a crippled doe – he is very attentive, and following the hobbling female and sniffing her rear as he traces her every step in and out of some scrub. I also notice in disbelief a male silverwashed fritillary attempting to mate with a meadow brown butterfly.
You would think, after all these years, that I’d have honed my skills by now.
Today I call with my beech leaf, encouraging a buck from a neighbouring piece of scrub to come to me. I position myself for a safe shot in preparation, scraping any dry leaves from the base of the tree so that if I have to step around it for a shot my movements will remain silent. As the beast races towards me across the field I presume that he will enter the wood by going over a ditch and through a well-used deer rack in the bracken.
I set my sticks facing the safest position, with a background in the direction of the gap, and wait. The buck, being young, will instinctively make for this gap, I think – it’s their behaviour pattern. Wrong! I hear a minuscule click to my left, and, without moving, I swivel my left eyeball to its outer limit – it encounters a red blur, which I recognize as the fleeing buck. He must have come through the hedge, then passed unseen in front of me behind a screen of green, zeroing in on the sound I had imitated.