Deer and Bracken

The stag we saw today had probably been watching us for some time and we could easily have walked straight past him. He was standing among the trees on the edge of the wood bordering Hathersage Road.

Reading the Richard Jefferies book it's clear that there's an association between red deer and bracken (or 'brake').

"Brake is later on the moors than in the warm southern counties; for although Exmoor is in the same latitude, it is so exposed that grass and flowers are behind the time usual elsewhere. Brake, however, grows rapidly when it first rises out of the bare ground at the sides of the coombes, or between the oaks of the covers, and soon has knots or other branches ........................ The deer are fond of the fern to hide in and they sometimes take a little of the tips of the fronds. All the deer country is full of ferns - on the slopes, in the woods, the hedgerows, the walls and the sides of old buldings.
The hinds seek the cover of the ferns when their calves are born, and there hide them; and the little creatures lie through the heat of the summer day among it."

The one seen below (in January) had found that the dry dead bracken also was a suitable place to enjoy the warmth of the winter sun.


Perhaps we should be more tolerant of the bracken fern. Much of the wildlife trust's attempt to sell the idea of their cattle grazing to local people was based on the supposed effect in reducing bracken. We have shown this to be fallacious anyway. So why not embrace the wilding and welcome the red deer who love it?