North Atlantic Skyline - - Photographs from the west of Ireland (Galway, Mayo, Clare, Limerick, Roscommon and even Leitrim)

A Flying Leap

Fallow deer in flight in Portumna Forest, Co. Galway.

Having grown up on a farm, I've learned that when an animal decides to make a run for it, it's best get out of the way. Cattle will go through anything if they put their mind to it. Once, we had cattle in a pen when one of them panicked. Despite being no more than four foot tall at the shoulder, the bullock cleared a wall that was around five and a half feet high, with a jump that any show jumper would have been proud of.

Portumna Forest has plenty of (fairly) wild fallow deer - they are used to humans but wary of them. A small herd of them had got themselves trapped in a wire enclosure and when we encountered them last Saturday morning, they attempted to bolt. The eons-old instinct to escape the snapping jaws of predators by leaping and running is the only defence mechanism a deer has, even if the 'predator' is a sleepy photographer lugging a camera.

The deer had entered the enclosure by walking under the fence at a point where it spanned a drain. Some of them trotted back to that point and made their escape without fuss. Some of the smaller (i.e. younger) ones completely panicked and ran straight into the fence, before taking another run at it and leaping over it.

fallow, portumna, forest, wood, deer, ireland, irishblogs, photoblogs, photography, galwayblogs, monasette, north atlantic skyline,Canon, 5D, april, 2007

Posted by Monasette at April 26, 2007 08:15 PM