Oh deer! Latest wild residents find city life can be tough

Increasing numbers of deer - usually shy animals - are being found in gardens, car parks and even swimming pools. But, as these pictures show, some have yet to adapt to urban life.

Animal rescue charity and hospital Tiggywinkles has seen call-outs to injured deer rise by more than a quarter this year.

Les Stocker, co-founder of the hospital in Aylesbury, said: "We have had 301 deer casualties since the start of the year, of which 235 were in road accidents.

"But I've rescued four from water, including one in the Thames.

"We got a call from a guy near High Wycombe who'd woken up to find a fallow deer in his swimming pool. There were apples on the pool cover and the deer walked over the top and went straight through to the water. She must have been there for three or four hours by the time he found her."

Deer have been reported in Watford, Ruislip, Hendon and Enfield and the centres of Oxford and Reading. Most are fallow, roe or muntjac, but some are rarer types such as Chinese water deer that have fled captivity and started breeding.

Mr Stocker said: "There are more deer in the country so they are spreading and colonising areas they have not been found in before. They are becoming real townies. We get quite a few in people's gardens."

He rescued a muntjac deer that scrambled 20 feet down a steep slope beside Reading station and became trapped in an abandoned car park. Office workers had been throwing bananas to stop it starving.

Others get trapped in fences and often need to have a leg amputated when freed. A herd of 40 threelegged deer roam the charity's land.

"It's amazing how they get into the most ridiculous places," said Mr Stocker. "They are very scattish animals and don't really think. They do everything by instinct and just go where the food is."