The Red Deer Rut is getting going...

Back to normal - for the time being.

Regular readers will know from my last post that I had steam coming out of my ears with the new Post editor settings for Blogger. Although the picture upload is greatly improved, how you place the pictures and placing text between them is not straight-forward. I've been able to change back to the current (blogger calls it "old") settings but I understand that the current posting editor version will not be around for much longer so we'll have no choice in the matter.

(If anyone wants to investigate you can find all this is "Dashboard" and "Settings" and "Global settings" at the bottom of the page.

One of my commenters, has also tried it and not liked it either hey ho!

Right - I had a return to Bushy Park yesterday and the deer were very much more active. Lots of roaring from several different males and not all of the that old either!

Firstly, not far from the car park was a herd of some 80 Red Deer. There was one mature Stag who I believe to have been the same one I saw a few days ago. He was showing much more interest in the hinds.

Just a few of the 80 strong herd.

and the Main Man!

A bit of head shaking and scraping of the antlers in the ground.

Further around a younger Male looked out across the pond.

In this area there were about 4 reasonably mature Stags

Two of which crossed over from the other side through the water; they approached each other - stood stock still and then separated and moved off.

Another arrived and had obviously been in the mud - his head and body were mud caked!

He moved away and this handsome beast came on over. He'd previously been lying down on the other side and decided to come and investigate.

he two of them were together.... they walked in parallel for a few minutes and then..

heads and antlers crashed together; you'll notice that the Stag on the left has his feet well off the ground!

This only lasted for a very few minutes and was more of a token than anything serious.

Another stag came across the water and started to roll and sweep his antlers in the water at the grassy edge of the pond

He then walked off and a mightier beast came and thrashed about in exactly the same spot.

He was very much more vigorous and mud and twigs went flying about everywhere!

A final "roar" and he headed off into the bracken in the direction of all the hinds.

Back on the main patch, there was also a small herd of Fallow Deer; this is a group of Bucks (I believe the Fallow Deer rut is at a different time!)

One of the little ones still felt young enough to grab a drink from Mum..

I'd spend a couple of hours just watching and taking pictures in the warm sunshine. Hopefully I'll get back at the end of the week for another catch-up!