Foxglove

But silage is not hay, and normally at this time of year the weather is unreliable enough to make silage a certainty, whereas hay never is until it is stacked under cover.

It can still surprise you then, if it is not quite cured enough and has a try at spontaneous combustion.

Silage time is also the season for the roe to drop their fawns, usually twins, and unfortunately some does think that a silage field is a good place for this, not being aware of the agricultural calendar.

We used to run dogs through the silage fields for a few days beforehand, which would bother the deer enough to take their young to a safer place before the tractors moved in.

Then came the change in the law that might have called this "hunting"; we had to stop, and many more young roe were killed by the machinery. Foxes kill roe fawns too, so any rise in the fox population will impinge upon their numbers, and then the increase in fallow deer of late also affects them, for the fallow drive out the roe.

For full feature see West Sussex Gazette June 3