Roadkill

Cycling along country lanes as I do, you won't be too surprised to learn that I regularly see a fair display of roadkill out there. Most common are rabbits, understandably, but I often spot pheasants, a hedgehog or two in the right season and even the occasional farm cat. Sometimes I spot the more unusual: I've seen a flattened weasel at least once and on one occasion a few years ago, a dead fox.

But this week I saw my biggest piece of roadkill yet:

Who killed Bambi?

I've seen deer in the area before. One memorable occasion in October 2008 I was cycling along the road that skirts the River Wyre late one afternoon. As I came around a bend I found myself looking at three of them. Two were on the river bank and one of them was in the road. The latter jumped over the fence back onto the river bank when it saw me and all three then started running, with me following a short distance behind. They then sprang back over the fence and into the road, then scarpered a short distance down it into a field on my left. They ran across it in convoy, exciting a herd of cows that were already there, before disappearing into a small wooded area that bordered it. That was about a mile away as the crow flies from where I spotted the carcass this week.

Oh deer.