A walk in the woods

Although there aren’t tons of animals in these woods (the last of the bears was killed in the 1800s, the wolves haven’t been re-introduced here, etc.) there are the “locals”: Ibex (usually much higher up during the summer, I was privileged to see a whole troop a few years ago when the snows were exceptionally heavy and lasted exceptionally long – still one of my fondest wild-animal experiences); badgers (never seen one, but the people with gardens and vegetable patches hate them with a passion as they dig holes to get at the worms and destroy the raspberry bushes – not so much for the fruit as for the pricks on the lower branches that they use to scratch themselves); fox - the reason that I never tried bringing up my cats; marmots; birds (the ubiquitous crows, the odd woodpecker, the sparrows and in the fall the magpies); the “people” animals such as cows, sheep, cats and dogs.

Deer are abundant, but difficult to see – I used to always see a couple when I would go down off the mountain early in the morning, but I love hunting season as they know where the protected forests are and I have often spotted the odd one at 10 in the morning if there haven’t been many hikers, or walkers with their dogs.

This was the case the other morning. Came across two in one patch and got a quick (bad) photo before they caught my scent, then saw another 3 too far away to even have a chance. It made my day though to be sharing their woods.

not the usual quality of my photos, sorry