The flight of a surprised deer

This afternoon I drove up to the top of the escarpment intending to buy some fresh vegetables at the farm shop near Bisley. The weather has been dull and mostly overcast with occasional light drizzle so the brightening sky as I reached the farm was very welcome.  Ashley's daughter was serving in the shop now that the school holidays have begun and we had a good chat.  She mentioned that the sunflower crop was just beginning to flower and I immediately thought of photographing them in the field as I have done for the last two years. It says something that they can produce a reliable crop of sunflowers each year, whereas I formerly associated seeing them with holiday journeys through central France.

Marie told me which field they were growing in, but wasn't quite surew how to get there.  So I parked at their Dutch barn and walked to where the crop was two years ago.  As soon as I got through the hedgerow I realised that they weren't there because the whole field had a crop of nearly ripe cereals. 

I stood at the edge of the field and looked around to try to spot the sunflowers. I had my camera already set up so when two deer suddenly started running in leaps and bounds through the crop, I pointed my camera at them and grabbed a few snaps. They quickly disappeared towards the farm shop leaving me with a sense of uplift. How lucky to see them running and jumping at full speed quite close to me when I had a camera at the ready.  The same thing happened yesterday with the tern diving for food in front of me. I didn't even have to wait.