Sunday 29 March 2015

An Accident

Our Lane has several small areas of woodland; places where the wood is on either side of the lane and the trees almost touch overhead.  These places are magical and in a few weeks time the first of them will be thick with common orchids.

But these stretches have also got a hazard as our friend and neighbour, G, found out yesterday as he drove down the lane to the next  village of Barden.  As he got to the wood a deer ran out in front of him.   He managed to stop and the deer stopped and ran back into the woods.  G breathed a sigh of relief.

However, at the next patch of woodland he was not so lucky - another deer ran out, straight in front of his vehicle and he had absolutely no chance of missing it.   The deer was killed and his car was badly damaged.  He wasn't hurt but was sad to have killed such a beautiful animal - and sad to have to foot the bill for what has turned out to be a tremendous amount of damage.

And on the subject of the laws of the countryside and the death o f animals, the farmer saw Blackie, one of our two farm cats, coming up the field this morning dragging a rabbit he had killed, a rabbit as big as he was.    So there will be no need to feed the cats tonight, and as we are totally overrun with rabbits it is hard to feel any sadness in its passing.   I just hope Blackie killed it quickly and cleanly - cats have such a nasty habit of teasing their prey to death.

There is always death stalking in the country - stoats and weasels, foxes, birds of prey - it has always been the survival of the fittest (and often the cleverest, which I suppose brings in to play the laws of selection - the cleverest breed and thus bring off the cleverest offspring in theory).

April showers are frequent here today - sunshine in between - reasonably warm and the kind of weather that is forecast for the week ahead.

13 comments:

The Broad said...

Commiserations to your neighbour to have had such an unlucky run-in -- especially so soon after what must have seemed to be a lucky escape. My mother described how when driving through their local town suddenly the windscreen was full of antlers and the deer was near death. Fortunately, the incident happened outside of the sheriff's home and he was able to dispatch the animal in a humane way.

Mac n' Janet said...

Sad when we hit an animal, we have to be careful around dawn and dusk if we're driving. Our daughter hit a deer one time and did considerable damage to her car, thank goodness she wasn't hurt and insurance paid for the damage.

Bovey Belle said...

I don't think cats tease rabbits or they'd never keep hold of them - it's a grab on the neck and bye-bye baby rabbit. I presume it's a similar technique with a full grown bunny. One of those things that is in a cat's psyche I suppose.

Sorry about your friend's car (glad he wasn't hurt) but I should imagine the deer went pretty quickly.

mrsnesbitt said...

I was thinking about your recent post about Killing if necessary - Driving home I saw 2 lovely male pheasants walking along - a couple of hours later as I was leaving the house one had been clipped by a car and was stunned, sitting in the middle of the road. I lifted it to the safety of our back garden. It rested for a couple of hours then spent the afternoon in the hedge. Later it walked away - I just wonder what happened to it.

Joanne Noragon said...

So many near misses driving through the woods here, and some fatalities. The first year we lived here a mother deer walked her two fawns through our yard to cross our mild little road back to the woods. One day there was a dead dear up on the main road and two fawns left in our yard. We sacrificed our garden to them that year and tried to teach them things like staying out of the road.

Heather said...

Luckily your friend was not hurt, though faced with expensive repairs to his car. The deer must have died quickly.
We had a small female cat years ago who dragged half a rabbit home. She swore dreadfully and hid it in the coal bunker when I tried to get it away from her. It looked clean and fresh so I didn't worry too much but even the half carcass was as big as she was.

Elizabeth said...

Oh dear!
Sad but inevitable.
Nature red in tooth and claw.
Probably better to kill the deer outright rather than have it stumble off into the woods injured - but sad nonetheless

Tom Stephenson said...

I do hope you are making the best of a bad situation by eating the deer?

donna baker said...

That happens quite often around here. My husband and daughter have hit deer. The local sheriff sends someone out to pick up the deer and feeds them to the jail inmates. I have also seen deer hit by cars that hobble about. It is sad, but happens in these modern times.

John Going Gently said...

I was worried it was you!

Cro Magnon said...

I wonder what type of deer this was. The dog-sized Roe deer are everywhere here, and we see them regularly crossing the road ahead of us. The much bigger Red deer are much rarer and can do a lot of damage if hit. I remember one crossing just inches from my car; I could even see the glint in its eye. How I missed it I don't know.

Rachel Phillips said...

We call it natural wastage around here. We are over-run with muncjac deer and they are a pest to the arable farmer.

Terry and Linda said...

What a good cat...a rabbit hunter!

Linda
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