Three well camouflaged roe deer in the Church Lane fields, photographed yesterday: a doe and her kids. Typically, a pair of roe kids is one of each sex, and here, the male is in the middle of the group; you can just see the buttons covering the pedicles, the places from which his antlers will grow.
It is possible that these two kids were born in this field, back in the spring. DKG photographed a doe and her newborn kid there last year, in May, and this could well be the same animal with this year’s offspring. Roe deer are territorial, and while the territories of a buck and a doe might overlap, other deer of the same sex are not tolerated unless they are the doe’s most recent offspring.
A roe doe and her newborn kid, photographed in the Church Lane fields by DKG in May 2019
These fields are allocated for development in Wiltshire’s Housing Site Allocation Plan: site H2.4 in the map below. In planning application 18/10035/OUT, RPS has proposed a development of up to 65 houses here. The public consultation ended on October 7th and the target date for a decision on the application was yesterday, December 2nd, but as yet no decision appears to have been published.
We wonder how many roe deer will claim the Church Lane fields as their territory in future, or how many roe kids will be born there.
Southwick Country Park Nature Reserve 
I’ve just checked the Wiltshire Council planning website for this application and reading through the consultee responses it seems that a number of questions asked of the agent for this development regarding planning policy regulations, have not yet been answered – at least not on the website! Is this a reason for the delay in reaching a decision?
The application was called in a while back so it can’t be approved without going to committee – I am not sure what committee it would have to go to but I have asked that FoSCP be represented at it.
Adore spotting them, when out for a stroll. 🦌