A Year in the Woods: The Diary of a Forest Ranger

by Colin Elford

  I turn slowly, pointing sticks and rifle to my left as the buck moves away. He stops, sensing something, his continual nose-licking a sign that he is unsure of what I am and is searching for scent. He remains motionless, and then with a burst of speed tears off, only to stand still again. Each time he stops he is in an unsafe position, or standing at the wrong angle for me to place the crucial shot. It’s frustrating, yet funny, that we are so often made to look out of place in a deer’s environment.

  Woke up at 4.45 a.m. and dressed in the morning moonlight. Have no breakfast, just a glass of water, then load the dogs in the truck in this wonderful light. I drive past fields of freshly baled straw, huge squares littering the stubble, all shapes looking strange in the moonlight. It is almost magical driving in this type of light, with the full moon large, bright and peeping from behind the ribbons of dark clouds that scoot across the sky. On the wires, silhouetted against this great moon, sits the distinctive form of a tawny owl. My headlights pass him but he does not take flight.

  On arrival I check two restock sites, glassing slowly. It’s amazing that even with a bright red coat, a doe can manage to hide in the patches of straw-type dry grass that cover the restock site. Only her ears can be seen as I glass for her companion.

  The sun is beginning to stretch its rays across the ground, and as I glance up the ride I notice I am being watched. The roe buck is in the centre of the road, unsure of my shape.

  I slip slowly behind the truck, grabbing for my rifle, and squeeze my buttalo call. He disappears into the Corsican pine and birch, peering out occasionally, but, surprisingly, refrains from barking. I pull the sticks from inside the cab and set them up at the side of the passenger door. Placing the rifle within the sticks, I squeeze again on the buttalo. I only call twice, and then I hear the brash snapping as the buck races towards me over the dry forest litter. He appears as a flash of red, breaking cover, pulling up abruptly behind a tree. I pump the buttalo call again; the young buck cannot resist it. Leaping forward, he bounds into the open. I shout at him, and he momentarily stops, long enough for the shot. Looking at my watch, I see it is ten past six. As though I have made an offering, the sun’s rays finish creeping over the forest floor, lighting up everything they touch.

  The carcass lay in the molinia grass exactly where it was shot, with the morning light flooding on to it. Standing over the buck, with the sun in the east and the full moon still visible too, I feel a habitual pang of guilt, which mars the triumph of the hunt.

  Rule number one: when calling, stand in a dense area where you nevertheless have absolute vision in all directions. Stand against a tree or some scrub if possible, and keep in the shadows and out of the sun or flickering light. Only call infrequently and softly. This morning I do all of this, but my entrenched human opinions tell me that the buck will come from a certain direction. Wrong again! The buck sneaks up behind me, with my wind going straight to him. I am lucky to get him. In deer work you are always learning and you can never afford to be smug.

  Three hawkmoths in the garden. From June onwards they are visitors to the garden and the woods. You could easily be mistaken and believe that you have seen a hummingbird in Britain. It is, in fact, a moth – the hummingbird hawkmoth.

  This migrant visits from Europe and, although only about one and a half inches long, it travels hundreds of miles to get here, like many of the butterflies that spend time in our country. The hawkmoth loves to hover over the head of the honeysuckle, with wing-beats so fast it becomes almost a blur. It zips from flower to flower, but if it stays in one place long enough you will notice its tongue, which it uses to extract the nectar from the plant. This moth is brown and orange in colour, but the tail-end of the insect has black-and-white bars, a bit like a bee. It’s quite a hairy beast, but looks as though it’s covered in feathers rather than hairs.

  Each morning for the last week the house martins and swallows have appeared restless, joining together for a huge gala in the sky. Copying each other in flight appears to be one of their games, chasing and swerving, plummeting and slicing through the increasingly chilly air.

  During the day they appear to separate, hunting out small flying insects. They have one particular flight I enjoy watching – the overexaggerated wing-beat flight. It starts slowly, with low-level wing flaps, then there follow amazingly fast wing-beats, accelerating the bird at top speed, only for it to plummet and start the process all over again.

  In the morning they all sit on the electric wires in groups of up to a hundred; then together, as though chased from the wire by some invisible predator, they depart in one communal flock, soaring in their squadrons until returning to the same positions on the wires they left.

  As I load the dogs in the cool still air, amid the constant coos of the wood pigeon I can also hear the call of my favourite bird, the raven. I am never bored by the sound or sight of this diamond-tailed bird. The cronk of the raven can be heard at a great distance, even in a strong wind that drowns out other birds’ voices.

  Ravens have a wide range of calls: one sounds like a ball bouncing on the bare floorboards of a stair, finishing with a ‘plonk’ at the end. Another is similar to the sound of liquid being a poured out of a bottle – that ‘glug, glug, glug’ noise.

  His courtship displays are just as dramatic in their composition, equalling those of any large bird of prey. Occasionally he will turn upside down and glide, with his belly pointing to the sky. Before I put a moderator (silencer) on my rifle, the ravens used to glide overhead at the sound of my rifle shot, recognizing that a shot meant food, as I often leave scraps for them when I gralloch a deer. Being clever and cautious, they would swoop to suitable viewing trees, watching and waiting for me to depart.

  Ravens nest early and I have several on my beat. They prefer to nest in large Douglas or larch, as well as using metal trees, i.e., pylons. Being large, powerful, territorial birds, they will protect their nest site, and I have seen pairs of ravens pursue and attack peregrines and buzzards.

  The difference between the crow and the raven is their relative size, the raven being a far heavier version of the crow. The raven’s throat feathers are long and pointed, making him look like he’s got a beard or a mane. There can be no confusion between the raven and the rook, the raven being the larger bird.

  The rook also holds a separate suite of coarse calls very different from its larger cousins, the ravens. The adult rook has a grey beak and face feathers, unlike the huge, heavy black bill of the raven. The rook nests in a communal nest site, a rookery, while the raven prefers the solitude of a well-hidden nest.

  It’s 8.50 a.m. A watery sun lights up corners of the ride side, producing a mosaic of light and shade. Thistle-head seeds, all but expired, hang like wool from a barbed-wire fence. Pale mauve hemp agrimony heads, having fulfilled their cycle, stand abandoned in a dejected cluster, their work done.

  On the last of these remaining heads, drenched by an overnight shower, several groups of woodland natives flutter feebly: large numbers of speckled wood, a handful of meadow browns and an old battered silverwash fritillary.

  As the morning sun intensifies, a light breeze sweeps the speckled woods halfway up a single beech tree that towers over the mixed scrub and bramble patch. With wings spread open the butterflies bask on heat-retaining beech leaves. Higher up in the top of the beech, a stronger breeze twists the leaves, wrenching and jerking them, displacing the weak. On the very tips of the branches wind-blown foliage flicks from silver to green as undersides are exposed to light against a background canvas of pale blue summer sky.

  Open up the barrier today, and on the wooden bar is the larva of the pale tussock moth: a distinctive, fluffy yellow caterpillar with a brownish tuft of hair extending from its rear end, like a tail. Its bright colour is intended to ward off any birds that might be interested in eating it.

  September

  I finish early this afternoon, so I prepare my personal truck with equipment for an evening’s sitting-up on my private stalk
ing ground. I am required to use my own, non-Forestry Commission, equipment – vehicle, rifle, bullets, etc. – when stalking on my own ground. Once there, I reluctantly put on my coat, as I may need it later, and stalk the short distance to my high seat.

  The sun is still out and the air warm; placing my rifle on the safety bars to my right, I scan the salt marsh and surrounding fields. To my right, in the bay, I can see small craft with glass glinting in the sunlight and an odd yachtsman with sail aloft tacking in the strong tide, while to the left of me, under an oak tree, a small group of hinds and calves munch noisily on fallen acorns. Snow-white egrets dot the black mud gullies, and on an elderberry bush, which resembles a tree more than a shrub, a scrawny-looking crow savours the bountiful berries.

  A flash from across the bay catches my attention – a speedboat returning to the harbour. A mass of seagulls take to the air as the boat passes, but it wasn’t the boat that disturbed them from their feeding grounds. Overhead the dark form of an immense bird looms above the panicking flock; the gulls make a meaningless circle in their attempt to escape but the giant bird is not interested in them. Jumpy waders, in an hysteria of flight, explode from the ground, zigzagging across the mudflats in the wake of this menace.

  The osprey is unimpressed with all the frenzied nonsense going on below: from its claws hangs a flailing fish that it must have plucked from the estuary waters. I watch as the bird fills the whole lens of my binoculars, passing low over the oak tree that holds my high seat.

  Occasional shots boom out across the marsh as duck hunters on their first foray of the season try for a stubble-fed duck. As the sun drops slowly from the sky, I track the progress of a few fishing boats, which are crossing the bay seemingly now with more urgency.

  With the sun hidden, the sky changes quickly, gone is the friendly blue, replaced by ever-darkening edges. The estuary changes too: the tidal race has begun, and water is seething, rolling, advancing into dry, cracked gullies. Its invasion of the reed beds is more dramatic, as severe frothy foam is tossed around the reed stems at the edges of the creeks.

  Suddenly, as though God has opened the curtains, the sun paints the reed bed with light. It’s an unusual sight, although I have seen this happen before: at the last gasp of sunlight the estuary takes on the appearance of an African savannah, the sharp reeds and rushes coloured straw yellow. The strange light whips across the marsh and is gone, and once again I am plunged into the feeling that a new season is arriving.

  The deer have sensed that dusk is coming, and I can hear their soft whines. A huge stag is tucked in the reeds to my right, its antlers clean of velvet, blending with the reed spears. Protected by his screen of green, the stag stands stock-still, observing the open expanse of marsh.

  From the reed bed, the squelching sounds of hooves sinking into and being sucked out of rich dark marsh mud are quickening; young calves, excited and keen to feed, bleat to their mothers to hurry.

  More stags’ antlers appear at the line of reeds, but the stags are all reluctant to step out of safety and on to the marsh mudflats. As a small flock of ducks flies over the reed tops just above the antlers, the largest stag steps out. The wind ruffles his black shaggy mane. Standing there, in the gurgling creek, amid the calling waders, he looks somewhat primeval.

  After surveying the mudflats for signs of danger and finding none, the stag treads stiffly across the low marsh stubble towards the meadowlands on the shore side. Hinds with calves of various sizes, who dance and skip, race and play, glad to be moving, cross in a procession to the right of me, as I sit trying not to move in my seat.

  The day is fading fast and lights are going on in buildings across the water and on the far shore. I can now see buoys in the harbour flashing their warning signals, as a small, poor-quality sika pricket comes out of the reeds to join the parade snaking past my seat. Sika are very acute and will often stop and stare straight at a high seat pitched in the shadow of a tree, so I move as slowly as I can within the confines of my seat.

  Watching the pricket journeying towards me, I follow his long swim across the flooded ditch and his jump over a deep black hole. Positioning myself for the shot, I let a group of stags pass. Then, as he runs to catch them up, he pauses before another trot. I was ready!

  I drag him back to the shoreline and to my oak tree, as the sky darkens. In the light of the half-moon, I can see that the herd, which scattered at the shot, is now reunited and halfway across to the meadows. It is always a humbling experience to be on the marsh, witnessing the rhythms of this special wilderness.

  Above me a wonderful almost full moon, its new light spread before me. Below my high seat a cock pheasant cautiously strides towards me in the deep ruts created by the forwarder tractor that has been hauling out the timber. He steps awkwardly, straddling the large tread marks that are cut deep into the mud, imprints of the tyre. Puddles of static water, held prisoner, lie trapped within the high ridges of the rut. As the pheasant crosses each muddy pool one at a time, its shadow is cast on to the water, following behind its owner in a catch-up game it can never win.

  October

  I find it hardest to get up in the morning in October, before the clocks go back. I’m always more tired, and the dark mornings add to the problem.

  I struggle with the urge to stay in bed for just a few more minutes today. There is no time for breakfast, so I load the dogs and somehow find my way to the wood half asleep. I walk the twenty minutes from the truck to the high seat in the dark, treading carefully and listening to the tawny owls. The first light is approaching as I reach the seat, and in the large recently thinned beech plantation behind me I can see clearly between the grey of the trunks.

  It is the first cold dewy morning of the season, and droplets are shed from saturated leaves high above me. The air is still and heavy, with a damp, earthy feel. The stems of the beech shine grey in the pale light. With such wide spacing between each trunk, you can look through at a distance and get a 3-D effect. In front of the seat in the thicket, the scene is different: a land cast of darkness and shadows.

  A pigeon alights to the right of me, head height and level. The branch it has chosen to land on is too thin for the bird’s weight; it sits as though on a high wire, swaying violently in an attempt to keep its balance. It fails and flies off in an indifferent display, displacing and showering water from the leaves touched in its wake.

  A watery, corn-coloured sun brushes the tips of the beech trees below the crown through the damp air. Very slowly the light appears and the shadows slink off into another world, unnoticed.

  The rump of a roe buck comes into view, its head down, feeding, searching intently on a small patch of ground. I watch for hour after hour, and it does not move from that spot. When I think the fallow deer have arrived, I am disappointed. What caught my attention was just a pair of wood pigeons, fluttering and playing around a puddle.

  I rub the sides of my arms to battle the chill creeping deeper into my bones. No luck this morning – and now it’s time for breakfast.

  I received a call-out to an unusual situation. In the past, I have seen some strange scenes involving deer and the many horrific ways they seem to find to end their lives. This one is particularly bizarre.

  The call comes from a friend, who tells me he’s found two deer on his shoot, apparently locked together by their antlers and unable to disentangle them. I play on the side of caution and point out that it is not my ground and he should let the local stalker know. I’m told he’s tried several times, but to no avail. I point him in another direction – try the gamekeeper – thinking that will be the end of it, but the phone rings again. Unfortunately the keeper doesn’t have any time but he did agree to give me permission to sort out the problem. Sunday afternoon – great!

  It doesn’t take me too long to locate the deer, for an area of about eight metres square is completely bare of vegetation; around the periphery of this bald area the vegetation is smashed and frayed. I find the pair behind a leafless hazel bush that i
s stripped of bark, shredded and broken.

  I walk with the wind into my face so as not to alarm the pair with my scent, imagining I will see them locked together permanently with their antlers, a sight I have read about but never witnessed. I move slowly in but, as happens in nature, I am spotted straight away.

  The larger buck rises, leaping and grunting, with clots of soil being thrown high by his flailing hooves. It appears at first that they are entangled in the hazel bush, which I think is strange. Then I see the reason for this: both bucks have their antlers tangled up with baling twine.

  I steady my rifle on my cross-sticks, knowing that I can’t, for my own safety, part the bucks. With a deep grunt from one of the pair the bush is ripped, roots and earth, from its moorings, while at the same time the other one is lifted up in the air, a bit like a seal pup being tossed by a great white shark.

  I stand in disbelief as I watch this exhausted buck, who has lost all its excess fat, throw what I now realize is the lifeless body of its playmate high into the air. Fear sets in, and the buck drags the corpse around. It shakes its head, frantically trying to discard the dead weight in the low bushes. I have to pick my time for a safe shot, as the buck will not stay still. I have a few seconds when the corpse gets stuck in a V of an ash stool, and then I place my shot.

  Both bucks must have been playing with the mass of binder twine when they became entangled. No doubt in panic or exhaustion one broke its neck and the other was left with his unwanted cargo. At least on this call-out I leave knowing I’ve done the best thing for the deer, and I go home with a clear conscience. Yes, stalkers do have a conscience.