Fallow Deer

The male is a buck, the female is a doe, and the young a fawn. Bucks are 140-160 cm long and 90-100 cm shoulder height, and 60-85 kg in weight; does are 130-150 cm long and 75-85 cm shoulder height, and 30-50 kg in weight. Fawns are born in spring at about 30 cm and weigh around 4.5 kg. The life span is around 12-16 years. All of the Fallow deer have white spots on their backs, and black tips at the ends of their tails.

The species is very variable in colour, with four main variants, "common", "menil", "melanistic" and "white" - a geniune colour variety and not a true albinistic which is extremely rare.[2] The common form has a brown coat with white mottles that are most pronounced in summer with a much darker coat in the winter. The white is the lightest coloured, almost white; common and menil are darker, and melanistic is very dark, even black (easily confused with the Sika Deer). Most herds consist of the common form but have menil form and melanistic form animals amongst them (the three groups do not stay separate and interbreed readily).

Only bucks have antlers, these are broad and shovel-shaped. They are grazing animals; their preferred habitat is mixed woodland and open grassland. During the rut bucks will spread out and females move between them, at this time of year fallow deer are relatively ungrouped compared to the rest of the year when they try to stay together in groups of up to 150.