Sweetly adolescent

Sorry, another roe deer. It's like the heron last year - while I have the chance to see, admire and blip them, I'm afraid they will keep appearing in my journal.

So I had quite an episode with a pair of deer this morning.  They were picking their way through a flooded reedbed and this one came pretty close, though you can tell he's wary.  Sweetly adolescent I thought.

I'm beginning to wonder, though is this the same pair I see each time or are there more than one?  It would make sense if this one was young and with his mother still, but like the swan family, she'll be chucking him out soon.  Only this morning a woman told me she saw these two 'most days' and that the male had been born 3 years ago.  Surely not.  Why would a 3 year old buck still be with his mum?  And have only stubs for antlers?  And what happened to the mum and kid I blipped last summer?

 I looked up roe life cycles online and got this:
They begin to grow their antlers in November, shedding the velvet from them in the spring. By summer, they are ready for the rutting season. After mating, they shed their antlers in October and begin to grow a new set.

So a pretty sure bet this one is young (unless any of you can tell me better?) and I'll have to try and see if I can tell the two or more pairs apart.

Not a lot else to say.  A great racket and much clearing of branches down by the Nuns' Stream, where a beech was so badly blasted by Ciara it looks lightening struck.  And nothing is happening so far about my garden fence.  Now we wait for Dennis!

Happy Valentine's Day to all you romantically-minded folk  xx