Stuck in a Rut

As I had to stay close to home this weekend, I decided to spend some time observing the rut in my local woods, Poor Park. The woods were wonderful, especially in the evening sun light.

I set myself a number of rules. Firstly, I would observe from a stand-off position and not get too close. If I was spotted by the buck more than twice , I would withdraw for an hour. More than three times and I would leave the woods.

I also wanted to identify a good stand or two in order to leave the camera traps in place for a week. I started my mission by doing a recce of stands. I started on the east side and made my way west.

I knew a couple of areas from previous years and  I wasn’t surprised to see ground scrapings and rutting signs in these places. In fact there were four main areas scattered throughout the woods; but unlike previous years, there was little sign of the aggressive thrashing and burnishing against the trees.

I had heard some bellowing over the week, but again there wasn’t as much as previous years. Perhaps the weather had affected the start of the rut. It has been extremely mild. However, it wasn’t long before I heard the bellowing of the stag deep in the most inaccessible part of the wood.

I managed to get close enough for a sighting with the wind nicely in my favour. The huge palmate antlers actually clashed against low branches as he moved slowly towards the stand to the far east of the wood. I followed on a parallel course about 30 meters behind. To my delight, the stag moved into more open ground, but he was speeding up, making me less cautious where I was stepping.

My National Geographic money photo was getting closer and closer as I moved in. I lifted the camera to get a nice moving shot when, suddenly, it seemed as though the whole wood had woken up. I had stepped on a large twig which sounded not just like a gunshot, but a canon shot! The stag jumped and proinked out of the woods and ran into the open ground and away across the field.

The next day, I was a little more fortunate. I spent all day on and off following and observing the stag. I withdrew quite a few times and I was spotted twice. I was interested to notice that that there was definitely a lack of aggression this year and I came to the conclusion that the rut hadn’t really commenced. I hadn’t witnessed the stag covering any does – and despite another fully formed stag in the area, their was no aggressive display.

My last task was to set the camera traps and sit down for a well-earned break. As I did so, I was concentrating on the ladybird on my notebook so much, I missed a photo opportunity of a young pretentious stag that casually wandered in front of me about 7 meters away. By the time I collected up the camera, I could only get a couple shots of his rear end!

Thanks for the visit.