We were doing some work on the road yesterday and it was comforting to see how unconcerned the deer were, grazing happily only a couple of hundred yards from where we were working. The forestry team reported the same last year. They would be in the middle of the woods, harvesting and forwarding trees with deer quite unconcerned right beside the vehicles.

It has taken some time and is still unpredictable. Sometimes they still make their exit as soon as a vehicle appears. When we first came to Croick the strath would empty at the first noise of a motor. I can only assume that there had been some previous experience of shooting deer from in or close to the vehicles so that they had come to associate vehicles with shooting. We are always keen to make sure there is no such association and we are seeing the benefits.