Relations with the Neighbours

How well do you get on with your neighbours? Do you prefer to keep your distance or are you all over one another? I've been observing the relations between the cattle and the deer on Blacka in order to get some idea of how social or anti-social the deer are towards the bovine incomers.



For those not familiar with Blacka this is the view from the track coming down from the only car park along Hathersage Road. To the left of the track is the Blacka Moor estate and you can see the wall and fence built to accommodate SWT's 'beautiful beasts' (cows to you and me). You can make out the end of the track with gates onto the moor to the left and into the sheep enclosure straight ahead. The cattle are where they are often to be found early in the morning, close to the entrance to the moor. Even when they are elsewhere the evidence of their liking for this spot is all around. The land to the right is interesting for several reasons. It's not part of the Blacka Moor land and therefore SWT have shown no interest in it.In fact it's not shown any sign of being managed at all for many years and in consequence it is that valuable thing a piece of land that has been allowed to follow the ways of nature except when sheep have escaped from nearby pastures. It is a patchwork of heather, bracken and bilberry with a few scattered trees, mostly birch with some rowan and oak and even a young sycamore.



It turns out this land is part of the Eastern Moors Estate and counts as part of Totley Moor. It has come in for consideration regarding future management. Lest I became too alarmed at this prospect the manager indicated that they were likely to leave it alone as it's "not really treeing-up at all" - a nice phrase.

In a recent post I described four stags moving across the moor and scrupulously avoiding skirting round the cattle. Since then those same stags have been been occupying the section of Totley Moor obviously preferring it to the Blacka moorland section. Sometimes they are in the bracken and at other times more out in the open. Today they were at the top end. Now I don't spend every hour of every day on and around Blacka so what I see can't be assumed to be the full story. But I think it would be pretty daft to assume that it does not give a fair idea of things and a useful indication. Two to three hours each morning and an occasional visit in the afternoon or evening must carry some weight and I would love to meet anyone who claims to know the site better.

Anyway the deer behaviour I've observed over several years suggests that they do not altogether desert Blacka when cattle are brought on. Occasional sightings happen but they appear to be less frequent and the deer are in smaller groups; there can also be lengthy periods when no deer are seen. These occasional sightings are also likely to be away from those parts most favoured by cattle - even when those same parts were previously favoured by deer themselves. Typically it would be in dense bracken or less accessible woodland for example. That's not to say they don't use those places when there are no cattle around. Every statement and every observation needs to be qualified to an extent. For example numbers and frequency of people on site also affect where they choose to graze and browse and lie down. But it's hard to escape the conclusion that there has been an observable difference in at least this one aspect of deer behaviour when cattle are on Blacka.

Things may change. It will be easier to come to more confident conclusions when late summer and autumn have come and gone. Those were good times last year, for seeing deer in the early mornings and rutting behaviour was a feature.