Last year we were delighted to see recently coppiced hazel regenerating vigorously inside the newly installed deer exclosure. This year we’re impatient to see how well those coppice stools spring into life again. To provide us with optimism, in a video clip from a camera trap that Anthony Morgan set up over the winter, you can just make out the shadowy uprights of the exclosure posts behind the roe deer.
To see the video click here. It’s a little hazy, so best watched in full screen mode.
Redlake Valley Community Benefit Society 
Hello, Patrick and thanks for your interest. The honest answer is that no-one around here is quite sure if Muntjac have arrived. My farmer neighbours haven’t seen any. I know what they look like from night driving elsewhere in the country, but I’ve not spotted any when driving home late. There are masses of deer droppings everywhere, but we’re not qualified enough to identify the species from them. When we first erected the fencing, which is heavy duty plastic and 1.8m high, holes started to appear lower down, but the hazel wasn’t nibbled. We think the holes were caused by rabbits, and we’ve now installed a skirt of chicken wire which appears to have stopped that happening. The prospect of digging down a foot amongst the tree roots doesn’t bear thinking about. Maybe, as ours is a small area of fencing in a much larger wood, Muntjac wouldn’t bother as there’s so much food more easily available that doesn’t require burrowing to get at. What do you think? Kind regards, Patrick. P.S. Come and visit us when you’re in the area.
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As a matter of interest do you have Muntjac deer anywhere near your site. If you do you may need to bury the bottom 12â of your exclosure fence in the ground as they are likely to dig under it and once inside prove extremely difficult to deal with. Coppice regrowth is a muntjacâ s favoured food source and they will go to extreme lengths to feed upon it. Yours Patrick Faulkner, deer management advisor for the Deer Initiative.
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