To get the best out of the rut, you need to get there in time for dawn. It is painful: I would get up at 4.30am, and drive for an hour and a half. But it is worth it, as you get views like this (at left).
Looking back to last autumn... For several years now, I have gone to Richmond Park in London in early October, to photograph the red deer rut. It all started when I went on a workshop there with David Plummer, whose courses I can thoroughly recommend. This year I went there on five days over the course of a couple of weeks. To get the best out of the rut, you need to get there in time for dawn. It is painful: I would get up at 4.30am, and drive for an hour and a half. But it is worth it, as you get views like this (at left). This is a chance to see a wildlife spectacle that would be very hard to observe closely in the wild. The deer are used to people being around, so you are less likely to disturb them than in many other settings. Every year however, some people (both photographers and non-photographers - and their dogs) do get too close to the deer. This disturbs their natural behaviour, and can be dangerous for the people as well, as the stags may turn on you. Back to photography... If the conditions are suitable, and you go to the best spot, you can be rewarded with mist that is backlit by the rising sun, as in the image on the right. The best conditions may only be present for 20-30 minutes. That may sound a long time, but just because the backlit mist is there, it doesn't mean that the deer are in the right place. So you have to be looking around you, aware of opportunities and ready to move. What happens during the rut? The males (stags) choose a small area - known as a rutting stand - and try to attract females (hinds). Hinds are only receptive to being impregnated for a short time, so by gathering as many hinds around him as possible, a stag maximises the chances that he can mate with one of them. To attract the hinds, the stags bellow (I always think this sounds like a cross between a really angry cow, and a chainsaw starting up), thrash their antlers around in the undergrowth, and chase off any rivals. At any time, hinds may choose to switch from one stag to another, although the first stag will try and stop them leaving. The next morning, it all starts again. Often a bigger, older stag will simply intimidate its rivals and cause them to run off (I would!). If two stags are evenly matched however, a fight may ensue. This is what is happening in the image on the right. In the foreground the two stags are having a set-two, while behind them on the right is a group of hinds that had spent a while hanging around the left-hand stag, but had just decided to switch over to the right-hand stag, who won the fight. Read about my trips to photograph the 2013 red deer rut here.
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