Hide and seek

Four roe deer played hide and seek with me for ages this afternoon. They kept their distance and alternated grazing with watching me intently, but didn't panic and run. I stayed with my body partially hidden behind tree trunks and was able to get quite close. In the foreground you can see hazel coppice stools, cut well over a year ago, that are making no growth at all due to the level of deer browsing at the nature reserve. We are now coppicing hazel stools at over a metre high in order to help them make some regrowth in the first few years, but we also have to control numbers of deer, both roe and muntjac, in the valley to help the woodland flora to survive.