Herd of deer invades!

I just looked out of my office window and there was a herd of deer crossing the courtyard just outside.

Now I know who has been nibbling my courgettes!

There goes the neighbourhood…

As the nights draw in, we’ve been having some unexpected visitors in our garden. I like to refer to them as Hell’s Bambis.

Initially they tended to hang around the far end of the garden, checking out the old garden house and the kids’ football goal. But over the course of the week they’ve become bolder and I’m finding deer in the courtyard, or on the drive or even in my vegetable patch.

Of course, after all the hedgehogs, rabbits, mice etc. this year, I thought I was used to wildlife around the garden. Deer, however, are on a completely different scale than any of these. You can be walking from the house to the office and all of a sudden you’re confronted with something the size of a small horse… which is looking at you with a look of: “Whoa. Where the heck did that human come from?”

When startled (and I’m confident by now that my appearance is terrifying for a deer… it’s probably the way I do my hair), deer make a strange sort of movement which involves their legs going in lots of different directions at once. It’s as if one leg is saying: “Quick… over the back fence” and another is going: “Yikes – scarper down the drive!”  It generally takes a good half second for the deer to work out an exit plan. During this half second, if you’re unlucky, its flailing limbs will be making hoof-shaped dents in your car, or smashing the cucumber frames or if you’re really unlucky, hitting you in the midrif.

As a result, these days when I go outside, I’m like a member of a SWAT team. I reccy the courtyard before setting off. I check places where I can take cover… and always run when on open ground.

Of course this doesn’t stop the problem when you’re actually in the house. Just when you’re pouring boiling water into a teapot, or plunging samosas into hot fat…you’ll look up and leap five feet backwards because right in front of you a deer is staring right through the window.

A deer at that distance appears to be looking down it’s nose. The expression is very much one of: “There goes the neighbourhood” as it surveys the state of your kitchen and the pile of washing up in the sink. It’s bad enough having Germans round… they who always seem to keep Ordnung in their kitchens. But now it seems I’m expected to tidy up for visiting deer. Fortunately, the state of my kitchen is such, that I doubt they’ll be popping in for a cup of tea just yet…

Meet Bambi’s evil twin…

I spotted a deer the other day, lurking way up the far end of the orchard. I suspect he’d come to scrump windfall apples.

I did take a picture… but as the camera’s flash was on, it’s come out looking like Bambi’s evil twin. Now I’m spooked and daren’t go down into the orchard…

Talking of weird creatures in the garden, I found an insect the other day which was also pretty scary. It was like a grasshopper but much bigger… I fear it might be an advance scout for a locust plague. In which case I won’t be making home made wine this year after all!

More cute.. but even less cuddly, we found a baby hedgehog the other night too. He was hiding under the car, so we moved him out of the way.

He was very pleased when we offered him a bowl of catfood.

In fact when I went back later, he’d actually climbed into the bowl to eat it. I didn’t  photograph that though, because everytime the flash went off, he rolled up into a ball. So I decided not to take any more pictures of him. That way I can’t be held responsible for a lifetime of hedgehog trauma counselling…

Oh deer!

My daughters just saw a couple of deer in our garden. They wandered off up the lane towards the main road. By the time I got there, there was no sign of them. I do hope they manage to find their way back to where they came from… wherever that is!