Spring has a funny way of making you think.
The mornings get lighter. The air sharpens a little. And if you are lucky enough to spend time outside early, you start noticing things you missed through the winter.
On my morning walks recently I have seen a solo hind, a sika stag moving quietly along the edge of the wood, and a small group of five red hinds drifting across the hill.
They appear, pause for a moment, and disappear again.
The thing I love most about deer is that they are not thinking about you.
They are not performing. They are not trying to impress anyone. They are simply living their lives, doing what deer have always done.
And in a strange way, that is quite grounding.
A moment to question things
I find myself in my forties now and, like many people I speak to, questioning things more than I used to.
Who am I really?
Why do I do what I do?
What actually matters?
It feels like we live in a world that constantly tries to tell us what to want. More things. More noise. More attention. More of everything.
Yet the more we chase it, the less satisfied people seem to feel.
And then you watch deer for a while, and you realise how simple their priorities are.
Connection.
Family.
Food.
Safety.
Survival.
Nothing more.
Deer seem to trust their instincts in a way humans sometimes forget how to.
They move when it feels right. They feed when they need to. They rest when the hill tells them it is time to rest.
Humans used to live a little more like that too. But somewhere along the way we started outsourcing our instincts.
What to buy.
What to eat.
What success looks like.
All of it increasingly shaped by other people's opinions, algorithms and advertisements.
Watching deer reminds me that the signals we actually need are usually much quieter than the noise around us.
One of nature's oldest recipes
Red deer are not just part of the Highland landscape. They are its longest standing residents, having claimed these glens five millennia before the first stone was laid at Stonehenge.
Long before farms, long before supermarkets, long before anyone debated what humans should or should not eat.
They are, in many ways, one of nature's oldest recipes.
Animals that roam freely across hills and forests, eating what they find naturally. Heather, grasses, herbs and young shoots. No feedlots. No artificial diets. No antibiotics. Eating what they need and not simply what is on offer.
Just a wild animal living the life it evolved to live.
When people say "you are what you eat", we often think about nutrition. Protein, fats and vitamins.
But there is something else in that phrase too.
You are also connected to the life behind the food.
Wild venison is not just lean, natural meat. It comes from an animal that has spent its life in the wild.
When you cook venison you notice that difference straight away. It is lean, deep in flavour and slightly sweet in a way that feels clean rather than heavy. The sort of meat that tastes like the landscape it came from.
The quiet animal
Deer have always struck me as slightly mysterious creatures.
They move quietly through the landscape.
They avoid attention.
They appear and disappear without fuss.
They are the opposite of the modern instinct to be seen, to shout the loudest, to stand in the spotlight.
In many ways they are the unsung heroes of the hills.
I once watched a red hind chewing on a bone she had found on the hill. Not something most people picture when they think of deer, but she clearly knew there was something useful in it. It was nutritional wisdom in action; her body identifying a hidden hunger for minerals and guiding her to exactly what she lacked.
Nothing wasted. Nothing unnecessary.
It struck me how different that is from the way we often live.
Our world encourages endless wanting. New things, constant upgrades, the next distraction. But a deer's life seems built around a much simpler idea. Take what you need. Use it well. Move on.
Perhaps that quiet practicality is part of what makes them so compelling to watch.
A growing curiosity
Over the past few years I have noticed more people asking questions about venison.
What does it taste like?
How do you cook it?
Why have I never eaten it before?
And sometimes I wonder if it is because people are starting to look again at the food system around them. And that quiet voice is saying this isn’t right.
Where food comes from.
How animals are raised.
What feels natural and what does not.
Wild venison sits slightly outside the modern food system.
It has not been industrialised.
It has not been engineered.
It is simply a wild animal that lived its life on the hill.
Just an animal that spent its life moving across open ground and woodland, eating the plants that grow there naturally.
For something so simple, that now feels surprisingly rare.
That simplicity is a big part of why we started Noble and Wild in the first place. To make wild venison easier to discover again.
Spring and new beginnings
Spring always feels like a moment for resetting things.
For thinking about what matters and letting go of what does not.
Watching deer in the early morning reminds me of that.
They seem very clear about their priorities.
And perhaps there is something in that worth learning from.
So I will not go as far as telling anyone they must eat venison.
But I would say this.
Trust your instincts a little more.
Pay attention to the things that feel real.
Spend time outside when you can.
Choose food that has a story and a place behind it.
And maybe, just occasionally,
be a little more deer.
