Wednesday 18 July 2018

Where Do the Muntjac Deer Live?



There a so many of them. Often I have to pick up the dead ones when they have been hit by road vehicles. The whole area is surrounded by fields and I often see them in the distance. Obviously, they live in these fields, but they are exceptionally good at hiding. I'm writing about the Muntjac deer, like the one in the above photo. They are usually very skittish and zoom off at the merest sight of a human being. I suspect they like hedgerows or the ditches between the fields. For they seem quick to go to ground. Sometimes, I hear them outside of my house in the farm fields opposite. My wife has a telescope with night vision. We see them in abundance through the night vision scope because of the green glow of their body heat. They are always running about at night. I often see them very early in a morning, when going to work. But during the day, they go to ground.  

Then, the other afternoon, I parked the council van under a tree and on a bridle path just outside the town of Chatteris in the Fenland of England. I decided to have a few minutes break and a cup of tea. Then out of the hedge jumped the muntjac in the photo above. I was gobsmacked. The creature could not have realised I was so close and in the van because it would be off like lightning at the mere sight of me. Carefully, I pulled out my mobile and put it on the camera setting. I managed to get a few quick shots as the Muntjac walked along the verge. Then it sensed me and shot off into the thickets. Still, it was a little moment of delight during a minor working pit stop.



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