Chawton Park Wood - first Primroses of the year. And Fallow Deer north of Alton.

 The first primroses of the year could be found in Chawton Park Wood on 29 January

A near complete absences of finches in the wood. There is no beech mast this year so no Chaffinches (or Bramblings) and no Goldfinches or Siskins were in the conifers. All I heard were a couple of bullfinches.

So resorted to taking photos of the moss which caught the sun lovely when it came out. This looks a good candidate for being Common tamarisk moss (Thuidium tamariscinum)

Badgers had been digging in an adjacent field..

A couple of days later, on a walk from home to the north of Alton I found this spectacular Fallow Deer. Sadly it was very distant and the light very poor.

It was part of a bachelor group of 6 - most if not all appeared to be males of various ages/antlerage.

Most had the normal distinctive black and white pattern at the rear. But one was all dark reflecting the variability we see locally.

They have a longer tail than Roe Deer. But not so long as the American White Tailed Deer. While birding in Virginia a few years ago I remember seeing a long tail poking up above the long grass of a meadow and thinking that it must be a really big Golden Retriever - only for a White Tailed Deer to pop out.