Spotting muntjac in high cover

Tackling the deer population at Grimsthorpe Castle is no small task, but ZEISS's new thermal monocular can help stalkers cut through the cover to find their quarry

- JAMIE TUSTING

Taking the thermal monocular out of its box and removing the lens caps, I turned it on and put it to my eye. I looked out of the kitchen window into the dark morning, expecting to pick a rabbit or other critter out in the garden. To my surprise, all I saw was my own mundane reflection staring back at me. I suppose I’d never really thought about it before, but I didn’t ever consider that the reflection in a glass window would have a heat signature, yet here was the new ZEISS DTI 6/20 picking it up. I’d never seen that in a thermal before; I was impressed.

Wanting to put the machine to the test in a more trying environment than my kitchen, I called up my friend Harry Coups, the agent at Grimsthorpe Castle just up the road.

Grimsthorpe has a deer problem. For the past few years, they have shot over 400 fallow deer annually and are still not even touching the sides. In a recent thermal drone count of the Greater Lincolnshire area, they came out streaks ahead of anywhere else, counting over 1,500 fallow on a single drone pass. Alongside their abundant fallow deer, there’s a herd of 300 reds, and more muntjac than you could point a thermal monocular at. A trip to Grimsthorpe with my new toy was definitely the answer.

When I let the dogs out at 4am, they looked at me with a begrudging glare. It was heaving with rain, lashing down in great globules. While I knew we’d all be grateful for the rain in time, it was unfortunate for my Grimsthorpe outing. Despite this, I chucked the dogs in the boot of the car, put the windscreen wipers on full power and set off on the half-hour drive north to meet Harry.