Who's been damaging my trees?

[spandit]

Took the dogs out for a walk in the upper paddock today where the bulk of my trees are planted. Most of them are in tubes or spirals but there are a great number of naturally seeded oaks, many of which are doing quite well amongst the grass. I noticed one of them had had the bark flayed off, indicating deer damage.

Went to hop over a ditch that is pretty much full of mud and noticed this:

The size of them indicated a roe and bearing in mind this was about 6:45pm, I was surprised to see said roe bounding off, although the dogs seemed pretty oblivious.

 

[Janne]

Yes, but look on the bright side: Venison!

 

[Janne]

Where in E. Sussex are you?
I used to live in Mayfield, then moved to just outside Five Ashes!

 

[abilou]

Plenty of roe and fallow around there, best option is a trail camera to confirm what you have seen. Roe are a bit more sneaky than fallow and territorial. Electric fence can work to put them off. Unfortunately patchy culling practices throughout the area allow deer numbers to increase rather than be controlled. Only real solution is deer fencing but I guess you know that!

 

[spandit]

I'm not concerned with the deer as so far the only damage has been to naturally seeded trees, and there are masses of those. I'm licenced for a .308 anyway so will be able to deal with the "problem" should it need managing.

 

[Robson Valley]

I bought a Scandanavian product which I have yet to need to use.
Called "Plantskydd," it's a powder/water mix to be sprayed on such things as grape vines.
No harm to the the plants and supposed to last for a couple of months.

Lots of deer in the village, some even crap on my front doorstep!
The garden fencing trick is this:
As the deer can easily jump a 5-6' fence, add a floppy strand of flagging tape across the top.
It wobbles in the slightest breeze. The deer won't jump it.
Local thinking is that the deer can no longer judge the height of the fence and that puts them off.

 

[spandit]

I'm guessing it was this fellow:

This is one of the trees that has been killed by him: