ABSTRACT
A steady grey rain patters in the forest as we tread silently, eyes slowly ranging from one side to the other, listening intently to every sound. We hear the distant crump of hooves, the warning call of a circling buzzard, a muted roe bark. The sleek black gun dog walks at heel, and then freezes, pointing and sniffing at the air. We stop and wait patiently, and then walk on. The plaintive fawn call is used to cry to the does; the bucks are indifferent, but during the rut they will follow the does in. The pine, sweet chestnut and oak forest is carpeted with a dense under-storey of butcher's broom, foxgloves, brambles and nettles, and a still deer can hide here with ease. This sodden evening, they are mostly silent. The rain dampens everything. In the open glades, the deer can be seen from a distance, brown against the grey gloaming of a July dusk. But in the forest, there is alchemy at work. A deer appears as if from thin air, bounding, thumping and then freezing, and then melting away even though you think you have all the angles covered.
