This tiny, fleet-footed deer is an expert escape artist – will you be able to catch a glimpse?
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Native to China, muntjac were released into Woburn Park in Bedfordshire in 1901, from where some are thought to have escaped, spreading across southeastern and central England and Wales, with smaller numbers in northern England.
At 50cm above the ground, this tiny, hunch-backed deer has the physique to slip through the dense subtropical forests of its Asian homeland, and shows its skill in the British landscape, too, leaving footprints barely the size of two human thumbnails in its wake.
The bucks can be lopsided. Summer is the season of antler-loss, and after the first falls, the second may take up to a fortnight to follow. Muntjac antlers are nothing like the branching crown of a fallow or red deer. Simple oblongs, they lean back from the male’s narrow skull as if to emphasise its graceful curve.
For the doe, however, summer is just another season of pregnancy and fawns. She is nearly always pregnant; giving birth after a seven-month gestation, she barks to alert potential mates that she will soon be available again. The fawn herself can breed when just half a year old.
Many people who hear a muntjac will puzzle over the cry. Short, hoarse, like a fox
