Pete's Walks - Shorter Ashridge Walk, again

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I did this roughly 5.5 mile walk on Wednesday, 14th October, 2009. Click here to see a map of the walk (but only if you have already read my disclaimer and notes regarding maps). The walk was a repeat of the Shorter Ashridge Walk I did almost exactly a year ago - I repeated it now as I again hoped to see some of the numerous Fallow deer at Ashridge during their rutting season. However I did the walk this time in the afternoon rather than the morning, and the weather was quite different too, grey and almost overcast rather than sunny blue skies.

I started walking from the car park by the Bridgewater Monument just before 2pm, and returned to the car about two and a quarter hours later. I didn't see as much evidence of the deer rutting as I did last year - I only heard two bucks roaring (I didn't see either of them). But I had far more sightings of deer than I've ever had before - I lost count, but it was at least 15 or 16 separate sightings! Almost all the sightings were of small groups of does, between 1-4. The two exceptions were a large number of deer in the large pasture by the Ringshall-Northchurch road (I didn't count them, but would guess about 80, the same as the last time I saw them here), and a pair of bucks beside the avenue of beech trees that took me back to the Ringshall Northchurch road. One of these two bucks was mature (with massive antlers), the other was immature (just two small prongs). I noticed this type of pairing quite often last year, as if the older buck is showing the ropes to the junior one.

The grey skies and dull light meant that none of my attempts at photographing the deer were very successful - I've included the two best shots below. Apart from the deer, I saw a Buzzard and then a flock of Long-tailed Tits as I approached Coldharbour Farm, and earlier on a couple of Tree creepers (possibly the first ones I've seen this year).