Fawn rising

This spring, new roe deer fawns are born in quiet woodlands across the countryside. Adele Brand describes a fawn's first year of life, and asks why farmers and some naturalists are worried by the growing numbers of deer

- Adele Brand

Roe deer fawns are born in May, when the woodlands sing with spring. This timing ensures the baby deer and its mother have a plentiful supply of nutrition. When lost, young roe deer emit a high-pitched whistle to attract their mothers

Deer diary

Watch the Wildlife Rescue Centre hand-rear orphaned roe deer fawns in series two, episode eight of Born to Be Wild, BBC Scotland, available on iPlayer 008

She chose a cradle on the edge. A fawn rests where she left it: russet fur dappled with white infant smudges, immense ears high, soft eyes turned on me. Its backdrop is woodland and its hooves almost touch a public footpath created by people; no doubt the doe exploits both, squeezing under a stile built by human hands while searching for ivy and bramble. Her offspring watches me with perfect calm, a marvel of instinct keeping it so still that even the dog beside me - hastily leashed - fails to spot it.

Roe deer, most elegant of phantoms, tiptoe along many edges: woodland and farmland, past and present, urbanisation and nature. These double-sided messengers bring the wild to our gardens and testify about human whim to the woods. Once abundant, then almost gone, now rising again, this native species knew this land before we named it, and has become a parable of ecological change.

"Fawns are a model of discretion among the spring carnival of woodland colour”