Deer prudence

A close encounter with a stag leaves Toby pondering the effects of lockdown on these magnificent creatures

- Toby Buckland

I WAS putting out the recycling when I came face to face with the stag. It stood right outside our front gate, bold as brass, its muscular body steaming in the misty morning air.

Facing off – me in just boxers and a dressing gown à la Tony Soprano in the opening sequence of the HBO gangster classic – we both jumped almost out of our skins. I’d never seen anything like it, and judging by the spooked whites of the beast’s eyes, nor had the deer.

For anyone unfamiliar with Buckland Castle, its battlements are closer to an urban bus route than the bucolic beauty of rolling parkland. In fact, it sits in the middle of a town, a deer-free dot-onthe-map since time before memory.

When I told my friend Neil, whose garden backs on to open countryside, about the encounter – sparing details of my attire (natch) – he said that a never-before-seen, 100-strong herd had pitched up on his veg patch, and that I should feel lucky!