Fallow doe

A curled up fallow doe, it's a deceptive photo. In truth the Deer's badly injured, most likely the victim of a vehicle on the A31...only a few hundred meters away. Injured animals are sadly an all too familiar sight on or near the forest roads, scores of animals (ponies, cows, pigs, donkeys, deer) are either killed or injured on the forest's roads every year. It's a very sad state of affairs, that never appears to improve. I had no idea how long it had laid injured, there was little we could do other than phone the forestry, give a description and grid reference; they said they'd pass on the information to the agisters and asked if we could wait for 5/10 minutes just in case the agister needed to speak to me. We waited, standing a ways back, out of sight line of the deer. Several of the ponies grazing around us, moved in to investigate, closer and closer, their noses probing...until the deer raised it's head they jumped back. Weirdly they stared at Geoff and I, as if accusingly. I told them it wasn't us, though I imagine the homo sapien/canine combo comes with uncomfortable connotations to most animals. Half an hour passed and no call from the agister. By now the doe was still, her only movements were shallow breaths, she wouldn't suffer much longer. I decided to move on, there was nothing more to do, and I didn't want our presence in any way to add to her suffering. I petitioned the goddess to grant the doe a swift passage to the summer lands to join the herds of her forebears, and sombrely disappeared into the nearby stands.