Wet Hunter, White Hart

The sun has finally shown itself now but during the wettest April on record we went for a weekend walk. We were tired of the constant deluge but a monster storm had been forecast; so we decided to pack a picnic and go to try and find the worst weather we could.

For once, the Met. got it totally wrong. The wind changed direction/speed and the rain stopped, mostly. So, instead of going to the beach to see huge waves, we decided to go to the New Forest, for a wet walk.

We stopped at Lyndhurst and had our lunch in the car at Bolton’s Bench; it was still drizzling.  I was just plucking up the courage to tear myself away from the newspaper, when my daughter shouted DEER! We all looked up and sure enough, there were two stags and one young, completely white deer, trotting across the grass and into the cover of the trees.

In a trice I was outside the car, wrapped in my waterproof and chivvying the kids into their coats and boots. We trotted off to see if we could get close enough to deer to snap a photograph but they had vanished amongst the gorse. So, we carried on splashing along the streams and puddles caused by the relentless torrential rain.

I did ask some local dog walkers about the deer and they told me where I could go to be most likely to photograph a couple of rare white stags (harts), so we will have to track down these exceptional, snowy beauties on another day.