Many people will already have seen photos of the deer that was seen wandering around the village on the night of Saturday 23rd September. There was another sighting of the same, or similar, deer the following Tuesday on the A6 not far from the big roundabout above the A46. This deer had a police escort to keep it safe!

Muntjacs are quite common in the village – in the summer I saw one wandering down Sileby Road early one Sunday morning, grazing happily in people’s front gardens but this photo shows a large stag.

I wanted to know more and asked the Leicestershire and Rutland Wildlife Trust if they could help explain this. They put me in touch with Dr Helen O’Brien, at the Leicestershire and Rutland Mammal Group whose job is to record sightings like this in order to help mammals in our towns, cities and countryside.

Dr O’Brien identified this animal as a young Red stag deer and was surprised to see it so close to humans but said that as we were entering the rutting season at the time, he was probably full of testosterone and ooking for a few mates. He wasn’t far from the Three Crowns, but was unlikely to have a successful night there!

An article in The Guardian in 2019 highlighted that numbers of red, roe and muntjac deer are increasing and the deer population in the UK is at the highest it has been for at least 1,000 years (about two million). But human habitation is also increasing as we build out around the periphery of our urban centre with more and more housing estates and the wildlife that was there still needs to eat.

I also contacted the rangers at Bradgate Park Trust (our nearest population of cultivated deer). Michele Walker confirmed that there are both wild deer and muntjac in the area. They had previously had a report of a large deer in Newtown Linford and, on that occasion, they were able to help as the deer was in a field next to the park. Michele’s advice was that, “If you do come across one whilst driving, that you slow down and give it a chance to move away from you before proceeding”.

The British Deer Society keeps tabs on wild populations of deer across the UK and they, and Dr O’Brien, would be keen to know of any more sightings. You can contact them at: https://bds.org.uk/ (British Deer Society) and the Leicestershire and Rutland Mammal Group Facebook.

Remember: any deer in the village is a wild animal and likely to be frightened so don’t approach it.

Karisa Krcmar