And this gift to the nation in 1860 was of predominantly royal bloodlines - a gift from His Royal Highness Prince Albert from Windsor Great Park - the species was released in most of the mainland states, most successfully in Queensland and Victoria.

But 154 years later, yesterday actually, they turned up at Thuddungra very conveniently two paddocks away from the home of Witness editor Edwina Mason who was in serious need of a front page story.

It was a strange scene that met Tony Roberts when he arrived at a recently sown paddock on “South Greenbank” at 7.30am to pick up a tractor. Met minutes later by Edwina’s brother and property owner James Watson, the two spent some moments assessing the situation. Tony at first thought the strange creatures were kangaroos, but further inspection revealed two stags, calmly walking to the east with a lush green paddock in their sights.

A call was made. The brother was concerned his sister had bought more stock for her growing population of four legged creatures and the sister was concerned that the brother was having a crack. 

But in scenes resembling a National Geographic wildlife shoot Edwina soon captured the deer in action as they quietly chomped their way through their dream paddock. 

Their subsequent encounter with a mob of Angus cattle resulted in a stareoff, clearly won by the deer after the curious cattle edged forward, tossed their heads, snorted, turned tail and trotted off in the other direction.

In a later interview with Jamie, Edwina asked him what he thought of this wildlife encounter. His first response was unpublishable, but he then gathered himself and declared it an unprecedented find.

“All I can say is you don’t see that every day,” he said as he drove off in his Hilux.

Tony Roberts was heard to suggest that perhaps with a red suit and white beard they might get a bit closer to the two beasts. And if you know Tony you’d know he’s halfway there with the beard.

Young district agronomist Paul Parker was less surprised. Deer he said can be found in large numbers around the Crowther hills.

And if you talk to Rod Slater, he’ll have another tale of the deer he found on his Thuddungra property on Christmas Eve 2007.

“We all thought he was having us on,” wife Kelly said, “but we went down and had a look and there was this one stag and I thought, well, Rudolph is obviously off track from his unit.”