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A quite long video cut with peacefully busy forest inhabitants. Presumably the roe deer family moves together:  the doe with the kids of last year – the doe and buck who were born in May or June last year.

 

The “buck youth“ no longer has the little antler sticks that grew out last autumn (the attentive viewer surely remembers) – he was still wearing them in January. The first proper antlers, knobs nicely visible, have started growing. The adult bucks have nearly fully grown antlers, as we can see in the web camera in the evenings.

 

Roe deer are cautious, one in the trio checks the surroundings – ears moving as locators. When danger is suspected, the hairs of the white romp mirror are raised, and everybody is in a hurry to be gone.

 

With a hard snow crust the roe deer have a difficult time with food. It takes serious work now to get hold of lingonberry, blueberry or heather shrubs. Good if a feeding place is known, and in the coppice some twigs for food can be had in case of dire need, but the hay put in the bin is taken last, the leaf sheaves go down a little better... The sleeping spot has to be scraped out of the snow down to the ground, and can’t be used in the same place every night, considering threats.

 

The heat period of wolves and lynxes is past, they cull our roe deer flocks that are few even so, and stray dogs are problematic in our forests already since years. After the severe winter of the year before last the guns of hunters have not been pointed at roe deer, and with the surviving strong individuals the population will be restored quite fast.