Late for School - Northern Naturalist

I was late taking Annie to school today because at 8:30 this morning a roe deer walked across the field belonging to the neighbour right up to our garden. I fired off the photo below from the bedroom window before going into the garden to see if I could get a better picture. Unfortunately, the deer had gone, frightened by a passing car. However as I was standing in the garden a snipe flew over my head and landed next to the garden pond but out if sight! This was a new bird for the garden – obviously, but on checking the BTO Atlas website it was also a new bird for the tetrad, which is arguably more important.

On the way back into the house I photographed this suitably Christmassy Robin portrait. By this stage, Annie was late for school, but what an excuse “My dad was stalking a deer and a snipe in the garden”!

The deer got me thinking about how many mammals I had seen in or from the garden and the total is a respectable 11: Roe deer, fox, stoat, brown rat, house mouse, field vole, common shrew, mole, grey squirrel, rabbit and common pipistrelle bat. Hedgehog is notable by it absence, which is a sign of the times – it’s over a year since I last saw a live hedgehog and that’s probably the only one in five years (I don’t count flat ones).