[Music]
Being relaxed in life can be hugely beneficial.
Things just tend to happen.
Sporting Shooter editor Dom is a laid back sort of fellow anyway.
But with his magazine deadlines met and the sun shining down this early evening autumn
stalk has a sense of being a chilled out affair.
And as if by magic we get a flash of a bottom.
It looked like a roe's bottom to me.
Just a fleeting glimpse though.
It just grazed round the corner.
Just have a sneak and a look.
It is not aware we are here and the wind is coming across us so we should be ok to get
a little bit closer, hopefully.
A fallow's bottom would have been better, but never mind.
Lovely to see roe deer, absolutely my favourite deer to see in the countryside.
From the gateway we see that this roe is not alone and she has twins with her, make that
triplets.
Lying prone and the wind in our favour they stay put until they sense something coming
through the crop.
It is a fallow and where there is one there could be loads behind it.
Once the coast is clear Dom gets on his sticks, just in case.
Nothing is in tow, but one minute later the doe and her 3 young re-appear from the woodland
on the right just 60 yards ahead of us.
We assume they will look up and be gone, but not a bit of it and we get some stunning footage
of these beautiful deer.
The kids are all young bucks.
Incredible.
We are not hiding behind a tree, not crawling through the undergrowth.
We are just standing here, calmly, quietly and it is absolutely amazing how quickly nature
learns to ignore you if you stay still and quiet for long enough.
Eventually the doe notices us, but is not off straight away.
One of the bucks heads off with her, but the two remaining bucks are undaunted.
With the sun dropping we need to get on.
It is difficult to walk away from such a close encounter.
May be I will set the sticks up just in case a mature fallow did show.
Will be in a position to take a shot.
The family of roes which is a mature doe and the 3 young bucks trotted up grazing and playing
and just having a good time in the sunshine and ended up I would say about 10 metres,
no more than that, literally no more than that.
Oblivious to our presence.
We were stood in the middle of the track, still, I had my binoculars up and David had
the camera covering his face, so perhaps we didn't quite look like a human threat.
But it is the closest I have ever got to roe deer for that length of time.
To be just a few paces away and observe them.
Absolutely brilliant and it shows what can be accomplished just with a bit of good fortune
and basic field craft.
That really made my evening to be honest and if we don't see another deer I will still
be going home a happy boy.
We better go up in the high seat, the sun has started to dip and the evening is drawing
in.
We will crack on.
The high seat offers a fox and a very late roe.
Too late for us, but well Dom's mind has been on other things.
Predictably after peaking early in the evening we didn't see a fallow tonight, but we did
see rather a splendid roe buck from the high seat just on very last knockings of light
coming across the field, but they will be here another day.
It was such a privilege to get so close to those roe earlier on.
We spent most of the time in the high seat just talking about that.
It was really, really good and you don't always have to pull the trigger to have a great night
out with your gun.
So we are going to head back now, but all in all an evening to remember.