Having just spent a fantastic week in Brownsea Castle (flora and fauna blog here) I decided that I would do a blog of the stay and list the flora and fauna seen. I decided that I would do two specific gallery style pages just to feature all the Red Squirrel and Sika Deer shots that I was lucky enough to get.
I've only ever had fleeting glimpes on my previous visits but this time it was almost possible to be a little blasé, this didn't stop me taking masses of pictures at all times. I've probably got too many shots on here and believe me, I've left off many more really usable pictures.
I've included some notes further down when some explanation is apt, and included two trail cam videos at the end.
The first sighting we got was of this young male within the castle grounds. Whilst not tame he wasn't phased by humans getting to within a few feet of him and I guess the trade off was that he got to graze the grounds with the rabbits as his only competition. The first shot is useful to help identify the tail markings.
First morning sighting out on the island and this is an open green just a little further along than the church, a area where we had fairly regular sightings. The deer in the first picture at the top of this sequence has a slight look of Pinky and Perky about it to me. The sandy soil doesn't produce particularly decent sign for taking pictures of.
The male appeared in the castle grounds a day or so later and again was very biddable whilst I took pictures of him. I also took a closeup of the fur.
I've included these three shots from a couple of early morning walks because they sum up how we often spotted deer whilst out and about. You started to get your eye in and see that you were being watched.
These two shots were taken on the last morning which was a full 'pre-tourist' walk of the whole island and are amongst my favourites as one, two, three then four deer stared past their cover to eyeball me.
In the shallows
Going deeper
Then he decides to head out.
A look over the wall...
Nope, back in...
He goes deep again
After investigating the groynes
He clears the wall in one clear leap
A tourist boat came past the castle at lunch time on the last day and the tannoy announced that there was a 'Sika deer in the sea near the castle'. The guide was right. After seeing the deer near the beach it was wonderful to see it in the water.
And to round things up, two trail cam movies. I had the cam out for six of my seven nights in various locations and was a little disappointed by the amount of footage I got. One is from the edge of the reed bed, and the other on one of the greens.
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