Saturday 15 December 2012

Lunch at the deer park

It was a nice morning so I went to the park. Six large deer had come quite close to the fence so I stood watching them for a while. They were looking towards the gate in the corner of the field, like they were waiting for something to happen.
Aha, that's it. At 12 o clock a tractor turned up and the ranger scattered some sugar beet around. They were waiting for their lunch.
The tractor went away, and came back with a lot more deer following it.
More sugar beet was scattered.
They are mainly red deer, with a few fallow deer, and some that looked like Bambi. I asked the ranger about them. She said they feed them in this corner of the field on a Saturday and Sunday at 12 o clock, when Santa is here. This corner is next to the miniature railway which opens at midday, and the children gather for their turn on the ride round the track. The mums and dads ride with the children and there are plenty of ooh's and aah's and finger pointing when they go past the deer. It must seem magical to them to see Santa's deer so close.  
Then they started drifting away.
And then there was one. What a beauty.
Goodnight. God bless the children.

11 comments:

  1. You made me smile lots while reading that. I think my face is still relaxed but in smile mode. Okay, so it's not possible.

    I loved the deer and the fact they can tell time.

    Speaking of magic, I saw deer at my transmission guy's shop while waiting for my transmission to be fixed. He keeps them in a fence. Seeing them in the middle of summer seemed like Christmas magic to me.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. These were reindeer I saw, not just deer. I wrote it like they were our deer that run wild. Reindeer are so beautiful.

      Delete
  2. Hi Ilona, Terrific photos of the deer in the bright Winter sunshine, so lovely to see them roaming around free. There is a reindeer herd in the Cairngorms, had taken my boys when they were just tots to see them. We were amazed to get up close to them where you could stroke and feed them. They were very tame. Gorgeous animals. Thanks for posting. Cheers for now, Christy.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Beautiful photo's!thank you!are,nt you lucky to have these living so close to you!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Gorgeous creatures and magical for children to see any kind of deer at this time of year.

    Sue xx

    ReplyDelete
  5. Oh,that last shot is beautiful!
    Jane x

    ReplyDelete
  6. I love this post! Love the deer and like one of your other readers, I love that the deer knew it was almost time for the sugar beet to be delivered! Perhaps they send cards with a tractor on to each other this time of year? ;-)

    Thanks for sharing: I love it.

    ReplyDelete
  7. I want a simpler life: did that card say

    Dear Deer, the John Deere is on it's way. Beet it, grub up.

    Lovely pics Ilona

    ReplyDelete
  8. Thank you for reminding us about some of the good things in the world after the terrible thing that happened in America this week... Your photos of the deer have brought a smile to our faces :0)

    ReplyDelete
  9. Hi Ilona, Just came across this video for The Cairngorm Reindeer Herd. This was when they were in Edinburgh this past weekend. Short clip under 5 minutes. They are on Channel 5 on Christmas Eve too, 9pm on an Eddie Stobart's Christmas Special going by their Facebook postings. There are some lovely photos on their Facebook page too.

    http://video.stv.tv/bc/stvlocal-edinburgh-reindeer-20121412/?redirect=no

    Cheers for now, Christy.

    ReplyDelete

Some comments will be accepted. I decide which are published.