I was walking by a wooded edge near my home when the air was broken by a crackling of twigs and the gentle thump of pattering hooves. It was a roe deer and it had picked up my scent. Although wary, it couldn’t see me because a tangle of hawthorn bushes lay between us.
So, I paused, and it paused too, as roes are forever curious and always keen to get a glimpse of any potential threat. But the advantage lay with me, because I had spotted a small gap in the hawthorns. I took one step to the side, which provided a clean view through the space, and quickly snapped the photo shown here. In a flash the roe was gone, realising it had been rumbled.
It was a good sighting, and reflective of their abundance at the moment, with this year’s youngsters complementing the adult population. I continued on my way, and not long after, a black-and-white bird undulated through the trees ahead of me – a great-spotted woodpecker. They are normally shy birds and hard to approach, but this one bucked the trend, and happily spiralled up a tree trunk in search of invertebrates without giving me a second glance. Although these woodpeckers are resident birds, numbers are augmented in autumn by migrants from Scandinavia.
Down by my feet, an old tumbled tree trunk adorned with fungi caught my eye. Fungi can be notoriously difficult to identify because there are so many different types, but this decomposing trunk held two of our more easily recognised species – olive oysterling and turkeytail. Both are stunning in their own unique way, and a reminder of the sheer diversity of live that thrives within our countryside.
Indeed, the sight of the woodpecker in the tree and the fungi by my feet had delivered a tricky dilemma – would I spot more nature by looking upwards, or was it best to keep my eyes planted firmly to the ground? It was a conundrum for which I had no answer.