Red deer and red fox together in harmony? 28th July 2021.

 

A young red deer stag & Red fox

Well it was a most bizarre encounter... a red deer totally out of context as to where I'd normally expect to see it and a "hanger-on" staying close in a possible symbiotic relationship.

To start with I'd never seen a red deer this close to my home and in the Camel estuary catchment area. I have however photographed Roe deer in this very same meadow but I expected that!

Roe deer

I had been birdwatching and as I wandered though the meadows I spotted a deer in the wetlands of a nearby meadow.

I had my Nikon 500mm lens on a Nikon D500 camera so took a few distant shots as an insurance against a "fleeing mammal"! 

I then proceeded to drop any gear I was carrying and start to stalk along the hedge line downwind and in the shadows of a high Cornish hedge.

I took plenty of photos as I moved and then noticed that there was a red fox at the feet of the stag. Pretty good at noticing that but I didn't notice the dead elm tree that had fallen at right angles to my path in the long grass & shadows! 

Oops! Ass over tit I went! ending up sprawled on my face in the wet margins ... fortunately only my pride was really hurt!

Also good fortune favoured me and neither the deer or the fox noticed my tumble.

I got up & shook myself down and carried on stalking them in the shadows.

Eventually I got so close that I could only just get the deer into the frame so I took lots of photos until the deer had a full on view of me and decided he'd seen enough of my athletic physique and masculine visage. That was it, he turned and jogged off through the hedge with a sense of "what the hell was that"!

Here are a few photos of how the sequence panned out until such time as the deer had scarpered and the fox then decided to stalk me and got so close that I could smell the rabbit on his breath!! 😄😄😄