White Hind

We were up at 5 am today to take Wifie to Liverpool Airport for her flight to Pisa, she is spending a week in the hills of Umbria.

Later in the morning I met up with Brokenbanjo at Ulpha on the other side of the Kent estuary. The object was to witness red deer rutting. We were out of luck in that respect, but eventually in the pine plantation that fringes the great bog of Foulshaw Moss, BB spotted a red deer hind amongst the trees. No ordinary red deer, this was a white one. Eventually she crossed the ride in front of us affording a good view before disappearing into the woods. Meanwhile, BB was wrestling to get his polarising filter off, so may have been less lucky with his shots.

If you look at this in large, you will see something else nearly concealed in the grass to the rear of the hind, a young red deer calf. You will also see that the hind is quite heavily scarred on her flanks.

White red deer are not unknown, but they are a rarity in the wild. Stags are known as White Harts and there are many legends about them. A white hart was Richard II's heraldic badge. This article has more information.

I have previously reported in this journal the phenomenon of the tidal bore that we experience on the big tides as the rising tide is funnelled from the huge embayment of Morecambe Bay into the narrow Kent Estuary. The power of these tidal surges never fails to impress. With the new moon, there was big tide today in the estuary and we watched the Arnside Bore sweep up the channel of the Kent, see photo here. The estuary is quite wide at this point, and the height of the bore diminishes as a result. Still impressive though.