I got up from bed the other morning just after daybreak, put on my dressing gown, went into the kitchen and, as I usually do, while waiting for the kettle to boil, looked through my kitchen window at my garden beyond. I should explain that almost at the end of the garden is a wooden fence, open at both ends with wrought iron double gates in the middle. The actual boundary of the garden at the back is a hedge two or three yards behind the fence. This particular morning there, just in front of the wrought iron gates, was a deer, quite a sutrdy one with horns, a buck I guessed.
I fetched my binoculars and we stood looking at each other for a while, then he passed out of my sight behind a shrubbery to the left, probably starting to nibble at some of my plants. I quite like deer so I thought, ‘Carry on, friend, enjoy yourself, as long as you dont overdo it. But as I looked, around the right hand end of the fence appeared cautiously another deer, a slimmer one, a female it seemed. It looked around a bit and then disappeared behind the shrubbery where the first one had gone. ‘Hallo! it must be this mild weather! Sex is rearing its head! It looks as if rutting has started.
As I said, I like deer. I wouldnt mind one as a pet, but I dont want any wild orgies in my garden. I had a vision of looking through the window one morning with the deer population swollen to four, all nibbling away busily at my plants. So I went outside and advanced a few steps towards them. They seemed to take the hint and trotted off round the end of the fence and out of my garden through the hole in the hedge, through which they had doubtless entered. In order to get from the woods where they live they have to cross a couple of fairly busy road and two or three gardens. In a way I hope they come back. Ive had the odd one in before, but preferably one at a time!
I suppose I could start a small deer park and charge people to come and see them, with the odd tea or ice cream laid on. People keep all sorts of creatures in their gardens (sometimes called private zoos) nowadays. If the kitchen door had been inadvertently left open on a warm summer morning, I think I would prefer to look up from my morning cup of tea and see a young deer peering at me (as long as he wasnt nibbling at the bedspread) than discover a tarantula or a snake in the bed.