High and Lonely

The back of one solitary hind can just be seen amid the bracken up on the side of Wimble Holme Hill. It's getting late to calve so maybe she's missing out this year. Also higher up on the part  of Totley Moor towards Stony Ridge are the couple, one a hind the other a yearling stag.

They're often to be seen around Blacka. Others that have been regulars are nowhere to be seen. It's possible some are in the more secluded parts of Blacka but more likely they're up on higher ground. This has advantages in the warm summer days when a breeze is easier to find to deter the midges. Bigmoor is the likeliest place to find them.

In addition to the breeze deer prefer remoteness if they can get it so any humans are spotted a long way off. On Blacka that protection is provided by trees into which they will quickly disappear  but up on the treeless expanses of Bigmoor first they bark as they find you're as close as 300 metres away then race off over the horizon. Photos need powerful lenses or a lot of work on the computer but it was clear that two calves are in this group as well as an unexpected stag (just out of the picture).

Once again the question has to be asked why on earth is it necessary to have cattle up here when the deer are already grazing the land? I can see no reason in this. Have they set their minds against a more natural vegetation? In Scotland the conservationists are seeking to reduce the deer population because they want tree regeneration. Here all is incoherent and one has to conclude they do this for the subsidy. I don't believe there is any expertise behind their decisions nor anything to show that the management decisions taken in the past have led to anything that could be called improvement.

It's worth looking at two views both taken this morning, one on Blacka where nature has largely prevailed through accidental but fortuitous deficit of management and the other on Bigmoor where they still want to deny natural regeneration, using conservation grazing.

The place above has been where to find cuckoos, stonechats, linnets, warblers as well as red and roe deer and many other species in the nearby scrub and trees. Fox poo is purple from the bilberries. A heron flew over just after this photo was taken and a kestrel hovered overhead. Yet this is managed as being in unfavourable condition. Below is Bigmoor where the features are so few that a line of fencing becomes of major significance.