Not the normal sort of cute pup shots you're used to on this blog, I'll guess! Dad had another Friday off and we all headed back to Challock Forest. Although the snow's all gone from here, there was plenty left, plus ice and frozen ground in the woods - they are the other side of the Downs and always have different weather.
So we had a really good charge around, but then we were amazed to come across a find Dad says he's never seen the like of in 10 years of exploring every square inch of the forest.
2 fallow buck skulls (yes, we have "bucks" and "does" in fallow deer - "stags and hinds" are for the Roe Deer and Red Deer, but we don't get those in Challock) locked together by the antlers, and with one of the front-facing prongs of one buck pierced into the skull of the other (actually through the top of the eye socket). Yummy! Just the sort of gruesome thing a small dog loves to come across, when she's forgetting she's meant to be a cute girlie!
A small amount of not-quite-rotted skin and sinew was still adhering to the skulls, and the rest of the skeletons were scattered about, presumably disturbed by the foxes, so we're all guessing these two boys died fighting in the 2006 rut. Let's hope the one died fast, injured like that, but God only knows the fate of the other, locked solid with his dead rival. Ugh!
Dad managed to pull the antlers apart before he realised what must have happened (and D'ohh!) now can't remeber how they were entangled, but we brought them home to photo and have put them roughly back how they were lying (quote from Mum... "You brought them HOME!!!??!!")
Dad was amazed and quickly e-mailed all his Forestry mates. He's been exploring in the forest for all that time and never found so much as a pricket-spike (one year buck's antler - single prong), then in 2005 he found a beautiful 7-8 year buck skull, and now this!
Sorry, back to the cute girlie tomorrow!
Deefer
ps - I did spare you the loving close-up of the prong actually through into the eye socket!
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