Urban Roe Buck - Bristol

Sub Urban Roe Buck

Fraying on the land owner ornamental trees. This is just one of many damage trees.

I was asked by a land owner to manage the deer on a small bit of land on the edge of Bristol, because the deer were causing significant damage to their ornamental trees. The picture above was one of several trees that had been damaged. There was evidence of both Roe and Muntjac fraying. You can normally tell the difference by the height of the damage. Roe fraying tends to look smoother as they fray with their antlers, whilst muntjac fray with their teeth. The fraying from muntjac tends to look very messy and ragged.

In a couple of outings I shot 1 Roe and 2 Muntjac and saw several others.

There was a particular buck muntjac that always finds me in my highseat and barks at me from the undergrowth. I can never actually see him. But he is only yards away. I've spooked him a few times and seen him run. As yet he evades me. He is one very clever deer, who always seems one step ahead of me.

I saw my 1st Muntjac about 6/7 years ago in Bristol. They seem to be doing very well now. We regularly see them on the banks of the Bristol Frome, if you are out and about at the witching hour.

2 years ago, my neighbour got a muntjac stuck in his garden fence and we live in the city. They called the fire brigade to release it. It was screaming so loudly that it had the whole street up.

This is in a BS16 postcode and shows how well deer are doing. They seem to be entering our cities, as fox did in the 1930's.

I spoke to a couple, at a party recently. They live in Frenchay and get plagued by the muntjac, who eat all of the fruit, flowers and vegetables that they grow in their garden. He told me that he opens his patio doors and shouts at them. They run, only to return minutes later. They seem to be adapting to urban life as well.

Until I started to manage the deer on this piece of land we regularly saw young deer dead on the ajacent road. The younger deer are driven off of the territories of older deer at certain times of the year. This is when they tend to get hit by cars, as they seek to find territories of their own.

It's beautiful to see them. I guess until they start to become a problem.

A muntjac foot print.

Deer droppings. By looking for the volume of these signs of deer, you can gauge what species of deer are around. I tend to use a Stealth-camera these days to gauge the numbers of deer around. These cameras are also great to obtain an idea of when the deer are moving and feeding.

Muntjac Bristol