We have a mangy one who visits us regularly - there's a trail he's worn through the hedge! There are many urban foxes in the UK and very handsome they are. (Have you heard them calling, though? Sound like a child being murdered. *shudders*)
There'll be a sharp divide between gardeners who have suffered deer depredation (get a bird scarer! get a water cannon! kill the so-and-sos!) and those who haven't (oh, they're lovely! You're so lucky!). I'm sitting on the fence - no, not the one in the picture - they annoy me too, but I do like to accommodate them if possible.
I'm happy to accomodate them if they pass through. It's when they treat the place like a cervine (is that the word?) MacDonald's I object. The shrews are very welcome but rarely appear alive. :(
No, I couldn't shoot anything I'm afraid. I'm a veggie so don't eat meat anyway. I feed my foxes when I'm at home and if they catch sight of me they RUN!!! :)
We live in what was once a royal forest and I sometimes wonder how much ordinary people in bygone centuries must have hated deer. The penalties for killing them (or even posessing a dog that might harm them) were horrific. All we see nowadays is the occasional muntjak.
Deer who have figured out that they are safe do swagger around being snooty.
I lived for a while on a super secret Naval weapons base. The deer outside it were culled each year. The deer who lived on the base had acres and acres, hundreds of acres to live in.
They chose to walk down the middle of the street, and eye you when you came up behind them in a car. They hung around the Mcdonalds, eating dropped fries.
I once made the mistake of putting a plate of oatmeal cookies outdoors. Deer sailed over my six foot yard fence and ate them down to the crumbs.
They can't get into my back garden (if I can call it a garden) but they leave their tiny hoofprints in the herb garden at the front. They won't eat the herbs but they enjoy wandering through them. I wouldn't mind at all if they didn't bring ticks.
Mice are evil. :D Ticks, hantavirus... In the front garden I'm more likely to encounter a tick that's been 'left' by a black-tailed deer but my property is wild at the back so there could be (almost certainly are) mice. But there are many predators as well.
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branchandroot
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Date: 2013-01-30 09:34 pm (UTC)I lived for a while on a super secret Naval weapons base. The deer outside it were culled each year. The deer who lived on the base had acres and acres, hundreds of acres to live in.
They chose to walk down the middle of the street, and eye you when you came up behind them in a car. They hung around the Mcdonalds, eating dropped fries.
I once made the mistake of putting a plate of oatmeal cookies outdoors. Deer sailed over my six foot yard fence and ate them down to the crumbs.
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Date: 2013-01-31 11:49 am (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2013-02-03 10:25 am (UTC)I like deer in sensible numbers and in the correct locations, but I'm also very partial to venison.
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Date: 2013-02-03 05:20 pm (UTC)