Pete's Walks - Shorter Ashridge walk (part 3)
It was quite a long walk beside the pasture, but very pleasant as I passed the magnificent beech trees. There was a lot of bracken on the wooded slope to my left.
The beech avenue
I could hear the Fallow buck roaring somewhere ahead of me - sometimes it seemed to be to the left of where I was heading, sometimes to the right. After a while I decided that there must be more than one buck roaring. I couldn't see any deer, though I'd been looking for them in the pasture, but then just as I reached the corner of the pasture I saw a large Fallow buck and a young one.
Fallow buck in the corner of the large pasture
Fallow buck in the corner of the large pasture
There was a slightly unnerving moment as the large buck appeared to head towards me, but it was only making for the fence on my side of the pasture and just crossed the path ahead of me, soon followed by the younger buck. I continued on ahead, along the avenue of beech trees, with another large buck roaring somewhere in the trees to my right. This avenue of beech trees is well-known, often appearing in wildlife/walking magazines or on calendars. Most of the leaves were still green, so it was not yet at its colourful best.
The beech avenue
The beech avenue, approaching the car park and road
There is a small parking area by the road at the end of the avenue. I crossed the road (the one I'd crossed earlier near Northchurch), and stood by a gate in the corner of the large pasture I'd seen near the start of the walk. There were now about 30-40 deer here, some way away but I managed to get a few shots with the 18x zoom on my camera.
Fallow deer in the large pasture next to the road
My route now took me along a bridleway than ran through the woods again, just a few yards from the large pasture on my right. As I walked along the recently resurfaced track, another young Fallow buck ran across in front of me. I passed a huge oak tree on my right, and further on a rather untidy pond on the left. This was just before a crossroads of paths where I turned right, rejoining my outward route. Soon I could see into the large pasture again on my right, and took a long-distance shot showing the large number of deer that were grazing there (these are not farmed deer, they just wander into the field from the surrounding woods).
The bridleway to the left of the large psture
Enormous old oak tree beside the bridleway
Fallow deer in the large pasture - this shot is just to give some idea of the number of deer there were
It then was a simple walk back along the path to the drive to the Monument, where I turned left to return to my parked car.
The footpath heading back to the drive to the monument
Some nice autumn colours as the footpath reached the drive
Another shot of the Bridgewater Monument
This was a really pleasant walk on a beautiful sunny Autumn morning. It had taken me about two and a half hours to walk about six miles, not too bad considering the number of photos I took and the time I spent watching the numerous Fallow deer that I encountered. I was a little disappointed not to have seen a Muntjac deer anywhere, but the frequent sightings of Fallow deer more than made up for that. Indeed, I have never had so many close sighting of these deer as I did today. The leaves were not yet at their most colourful, but were still very attractive - my photos really don't do them justice.
[UPDATE 20/09/15: I should say that I have done this walk several times since, and never had anywhere near so many sightings of Fallow Deer. However I don't think I've ever done it without seeing any deer at all]