I came across three deer on the road back from Gueret at lunchtime today. It looked like a hind with two youngsters. They were trying to get away from a car that was coming from the opposite direction so when I came around the corner they panicked even more than they were already panicking and ran back and forth across the road imitating the famous headless chickens. In my experience, gained as a chicken-keeper's neighbour, still having their heads on is no barrier to aimless dashing about. But that's another story.

Both cars stopped to give the deer a chance to get organised. Their problem was that high hedges border that stretch of the road making their normal tactic of rushing off into the fields a bit difficult.

At length, shattering my cosy notion that mother animals put their young first, the hind took a run at it and cleared the hedge leaving the wee ones to ferret about for a gap at ditch level.

Maybe it was their dad.