Sunday 9 January 2022

Aristocracy

Turning inland from the coast, which we visited in our last post, we pass through Holkham village, which was built to house some of the workers from the Hall and its surrounding estate in the eighteenth century. The "cottage" below must have been for an important member of the Hall's staff.



We take the road through the ornate gates to Holkham Hall itself - a building so large, incidentally, that a previous owner's wife trained two Labrador dogs to track and take messages to her husband, wherever he might be in the vast building. But it's not the human aristocracy that I'm trying to find.



No, the real nobility here is the herd of Fallow Deer. You only have to look at the haughty bearing of the buck in the centre of the picture above to see who is the true lord of all he beholds.



The herd has occupied the park for over two hundred years and, like many of the human nobility, they can trace their ancestry back to the Norman invasion. There's even evidence that they were here earlier than that, having been first introduced to Britain by the Romans; so the Normans merely re-introduced the species to England.



Having got here they strutted around, both the Normans and the Fallow Deer, as if they owned the place.



They are medium-sized deer standing perhaps a metre tall at the shoulder and weighing around 50 Kg, though the males may be bigger. There are four basic colour types: Common - which are tan coloured with white spots, but which fade to a mostly grey colour during winter; Menil - which are slightly paler with white spots, and which remain that colour throughout the year; Melanistic - which are almost totally black or dark brown; and White - which are very pale and get more white with age, but they are not true albinos.



The deer are confined to the park but live as wild animals within it, though they do need more management and intervention than some other breeds to maintain a healthy population. And since there are visitors to the park throughout the year they are not much fazed by people taking photos of them, provided you keep a respectful distance.



Most of these pictures were taken with a lens giving 9x magnification and many have been further cropped to give the shots you see here.


In theory I shouldn't have to travel so far to take pictures of Fallow Deer; there's a small population of them, including occasional pure white animals, living around my home area. I see them from time to time from the hides on my local nature reserve, or else way, way across the fields. They are extremely wary and flighty though.  



My local deer are descended from those that escaped from deer parks centuries ago. They cause a good deal of damage to woodlands, gardens and nature reserves, particularly to young plants and trees.


Here in the parkland around Holkham Hall newly planted trees can be fenced off until they are established enough to withstand a bit of nibbling during winter when the grazing is less plentiful.


In the heyday of these parks the deer were kept to be hunted and a buck with a fine set of antlers would have been a sought after prize. They still are, but only for an old chap with a camera. Rather than take flight, this individual gave me a long, bored look, posed for a bit then wandered off unconcernedly.



And there we'll leave these aristocrats of the Norfolk countryside. One day I may even get around to visiting the Hall.


Take care.


31 comments:

  1. The deer are a fascinating study. A tip of the hat to our Norman ancestors. I have never see the variety of colour among deer as you describe but I have never lived anywhere with deer.

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  2. I was so excited to see the similar landscape with Nara Park, where about 1100 fallow deer roam around in spacious area including grassland and woodland. Similarities; deer are so cute with spotted coat and upside-down heart-shaped rumps. Difference; I don’t need telephoto lens to take picture of them. Over the centuries they have lived so close to humans that they don’t fear people despite of being wild animals. Thanks for this post.

    Yoko

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  3. It is nice to see the deer herd thriving well at Holkham. The deer herd near to us in Dryham Park, also NT, had to be culled earlier this year due to bovine tuberculosis.
    It is strange that they are so timerous, that is certainly not the case for the deer that regularly attend our garden. They stare deviantly at us through our windows as if it us that should not be there.

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  4. Thanks for another album of beautiful animals...they are indeed charming in their acceptance of our species carrying those strange one eyed boxes.

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  5. Loved reading the history of this deer population there. I was surprised to see the different colors and especially the spotted ones. That buck is quite a beauty. Nice of him to pose for you like that.

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  6. Certainly magnificent pictures - however in the wild deer are becoming something of a nuisance as they have so few predators apart from humans.

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  7. Are they culled when they get old John?

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    1. I expect there must be some culling to restrict numbers and to ensure the long-term health of the herd.

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  8. Beautiful things - and the type of aristocracy I would go considerable distances to see.

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  9. These deer look very different from the ones we have here in the US. Thanks for sharing your pictures!

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  10. Beautiful walk! I wonder how big must this estate be to provide food and enough space for all these deers?

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    1. There are around 800 deer on 250 hectares of land. I don't know if they supply any extra food for the deer in winter.

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  11. They have an antler similar to caribou.

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  12. I went to visit the Hall one time and it turned out to be a day when it was closed but we were able to walk the grounds and see the deer. Thanks for bringing back those memories.

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  13. They are magnificent creatures. Good to be able to photograph them without them disappearing.

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  14. Those are impressive beasties! I bet the hall would be too.

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  15. I would like to see the Hall, too, but if I had to choose between the two, I would choose these. They are beautiful.

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  16. Those deer live a charmed life, totally free from any normal interaction between predator and prey, with fawning (no pun intended) humans to look after their welfare. They are gorgeous though!

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  17. How wonderful to see them, they are beautiful creatures:)

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  18. Introduced by the Romans! Again I learn something new,

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  19. The deer are beautiful. I love all the photos. Enjoy your day, hugs, Edna B.

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  20. What a lovely deers. You are happy you can see such a beauty on your walking.

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  21. Beautiful antlers, more like our moose than our deer.

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  22. Hi John - amazing to think they've been around that long ... and I hadn't realised the Romans had introduced deer into the UK. Delightful photos in this scenic setting ... the Hall sounds like it'd be a very interesting place to visit, relatively untouched I gather. Definitely the aristocrats of nature ... cheers Hilary

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  23. So how do they keep them contained if visitors are allowed on the grounds? Do you have to pass through some sort of stile the deer can't navigate?
    I imagine they were imported to provide venison for the table. Are there no other deer in England?

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    1. There's a nine-mile long wall around the deer park and gates and cattle-grids at all the entrances. There are two breeds of native deer in the UK - the Red Deer, that you perhaps know from paintings like Monarch of the Glen, and the smaller Roe Deer, which is about the same size as the Fallow Deer. There are also two more recent imports which have escaped into the wild, the smaller Muntjac and the Chinese Water Deer.

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  24. Such elegant creatures... We have only skunks, opossums and coyotes in our hills. Oh, and in the park, just a half mile away, still the occasional bobcat and mountain lion. They are known to come down to the streets in search of human food remnants. I have to beware of coyotes when I take our small dog our for his early morning and late evening walks.

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  25. Enjoyed seeing the photos of all the Fallow Deer, John, but must admit that first shot of the "cottage" was my favorite. It looks quite charming and now I am going back to read your previous post as well.

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