Metskitse aasta 2017

The roe deer doe may have a fawn hidden nearby.
Photo: Tarmo Mikussaar
Posted by the Animal of the Year Team  09.06.2017

It is the time when on moving around in nature you may come across a spotted roe deer fawn lying on the ground. It is the great secret of the roe deer doe, and it is visited and fed a couple of times a day. Since the fawn has no smell, foxes, dogs and other predators cannot find it. Such a creature must not be caressed, lifted up or taken along. A human-smelling fawn will probably be abandoned. It is sensible to leave quietly the same way as you came.  Evidently the worried adult keeps an eye on us from a distance.

Vahur Sepp

The boar lazes. The dried tree is a very pleasant place for him, here he can scratch himself, get rid of the old fur and leave his scent marks. The boar enjoys all these activities.
Trail camera video assembled by  Kalle Pihelgas

Posted by the Team of the Animal of the Year 09.05.2017

Roe bucks and one doe in mid-April 2017.The antlers of one buck is already bare. The furs are still winter-coloured and fit very well into the bare spring landscape.

The winter which fortunately was easy to bear for the roe deer has ended and the animals are in good condition. Springtime activities begin.

Game animal specialist Peep Männil sent the video of the collaring of the roe buck that was done in connection with the telemetric studies of the Estonian  Environment Agency. In it the size of the territories of roe deer and their movement patterns were observed in different seasons.  In 2012 four roe deer were collared; one of them is the buck that can also be seen in the video. The little buck was momentarily frightened – what is happening?

The little buck – he is not really so ”little” any more, already a grown-up buck - shows himself off in all his splendour, both in daylight and in the dark of the night. With the warming of the weather the animals come less often for ”selfie photos”. Today, on March 27th, the weather is already so fine that bees attempt to collect pollen from elders and hazels and make big flights. For the first time this spring.

The fourth grade of the Ridala Elementary School invited the editors of the home page of the the animal of the year to visit them to see their trail camera. The camera is hidden at in the Vätse village five kilometres away from the school, at the house of fourth-grade pupil Erik.  When we got out of the car we headed for a little clearing in the forest behind the house where there was some grain spread on the ground and a salt lick block on top of a pole. We added vegetables bought at the Haapsalu market: carrots and cabbage leaves – roe deer like them. At the moment of course there were no animals there – our trampling around scared them. But in the trail camera the daytime visits of of the animals are nicely captured. 

Who else comes to the salt lick? We take along one camera from the tree – and hurried to the warm room to drink raspberry leaf tea and watch the images!

A view of roe deer from above too. In Tarmo Mikussaare’s drone photo we see a roe deer flock in a sparse forest. Just like this they spend their time together in winter and don’t move around very much. Particularly when there is plenty of food nearby. In that case the roe deer don’t move at all! 

Among the large game animals the roe deer is the most frequent victim in traffic in Estonia. Car drivers should be particularly attentive in the Tiskre area and around the Jägala river bridge where a road with dense traffic and a traditional roe deer path coincide.
Photo: Tarmo Mikussaar

Although Estonia has more nature and a smaller population density in comparison to other European countries people still will not keep in one place but move around. Neither do the wild animals stay in one place but wander around, among them the roe deer, among the most numerous in Estonia. They move between summer and winter areas, in search of food, in the heat period, and on widening their habitats as well as on becoming independent. So the paths of roe deer and humans cross quite often and when a human with a motor vehicle and a roe deer on foot meet it is clear that due to the different speeds someone will obviously be hurt.

We see the white rump patches only in winter, in summer these hairs are brown. Photo: Tarmo Mikussaar