A week or so back I wrote about seeing the crows fly across from the copse to the spinney and then I wrote about visiting the trees in the copse some days later. During that walk, I felt urged to visit the circular spinney again the next time I walked in these fields.
I say "I felt urged" but what really happened was that I felt that the old oak told me I should go there and that one of the oaks over there would prove to be a good buddy. Yes, I know. Crazy.
Anyway, I went over there.
Inside the spinney, one of the trees had a scar all around the trunk.
I have seen this before and assume that something was binding the girth of the tree at some stage in its development.
Nearby was a patch of scraped earth.
I wondered if it were a hare's form then thought it was too big and maybe it was a place where deer slept. At that very moment, I saw a deer.
A stag.
A roe stag just like in the sacred grove at my old home in Devon.
He walked delicately toward me. Closer and closer. Nibbling a leaf here and there. His antlers were bigger than the deer I filmed with my trail camera and his coast was a bright russet, gleaming in the dappled light. He was stunning.
He came closer and closer as I stood completely still.
I realised I was upwind of him and even though he might not notice me by sight - if I didn't move - or sound, he would smell me.
He was 12 or 15 feet away when I saw him start. His back legs bent and he sprang up and away, leaping west before turning north and trotting off.
I had been so close that I could sense the calm of him. His focus on finding food that he actually wanted to eat. I could see the dark hairs around his broad moist nose and the huge black eyes.
I felt blessed. And the oak had told me to come here!
I walked to the tree that the oak had suggested I might befriend, and found that I could climb up, only a short way up, but I could climb up. Another place to sit among leaves.
That is the view back to the old oak in the copse.
Oh my gosh! The stag!