February -week 5
I started becoming a more frequent visitor to Slaughter's Wood as I moved closer to it's entrance, just over two years ago. At first it was just a gateway into the Hertfordshire countryside for me to reach the Chiltern Way, Icknield Way, and may favourite local villages of Kimpton, King's Walden, Wheathampstead and Offley. However, after the first time I spotted the muntjac deer, just a few hundred yards from my house, I became a regular visitor.
Muntjac and fallow deer are fairly widespread in the area. Reeves's muntjac were introduced to England, with wild deer descended from escapees from the Woburn Abbey estate around 1925. It was rare for me to make a visit to Slaughter's Wood and the fields around Cockernhoe without spotting a lone muntjac. At first I never took my camera with me but after an encounter with one in September 2015 (where we stood face to face on the path observing each other, neither of us moving a muscle, for a good five minutes, I decided it was time to try and capture a photograph of my friend. Since then I haven't seen a single one. Until today.
As I started to take my camera along with me, I started to observe. Not the dramatic landscapes, and framed panoramas I was used to photographing and painting, but I began to open my eyes to the tiny world and miniature details brought about by the changing seasons. A droplet of water on a branch, a snowflake on a bramble, a pattern of burrs, a new bright green shoot, blue sky reflected in a puddle. It has become my therapy, my shinrin yoku (google it), enlifting and private.
Today as I wandered until my camera battery finally died, within a fraction of a second of it expiring, my deer leapt out from the trees right beside me and crossed my path just inches in front of me. Nature has timings all of her own. Private moments, I was reminded, not intended to be shared.
