Nature Notes with Graham Workman: looking forward to the red deer rut starting this month
In this week’s Nature Notes, Graham Workman looks at red deer stag and rutting.
Probably my favourite “large” mammal event in the UK is not long off now - the red deer rut.
It is our largest land mammal and, from mid September to November depending on location, it is the noisiest mammal too!!
In the lead up to the rut, there are a number of physiological changes to male deer including a massive increase of testosterone, the doubling of neck thickness, the larynx becoming more prominent and the tongue changing shape.
Roars and bellows are used as the first line of defence as a way to deter rivals. A deeper louder roar signals a larger animal.
The sound of a roar can help rival stags determine from a distance whether to try their luck and females can use it to judge the best quality males in the area.
His roar during the rut is a powerful, deep and guttural bellow that can carry across valleys for up to two miles in cool, still air.
The low rumble, if you're in a safe place less than thirty metres away is just like elephant rumbling - you actually “feel” the sound in your chest cavity and “belly” as well as hearing it.
Then, as an addition to his “noise assembly repertoire”, red deer stag's antlers when clashing with other stags during the rut is a sharp, cracking impact that can easily exceed 90 to 100 decibels at close range, echoing clearly across open glades, woodland and on the Scottish mountains and glens carry for many hundred metres.
The largest stags will hold harems in the middle of the rut when most of the hinds are in oestrus.
The younger, smaller and less experienced stags get very sneaky and use other methods to mate with hinds on the edge of the harem.
They can be spotted lurking about and keeping a low profile to try and quickly dash in to mate with the hinds when the dominant stag is otherwise engaged in battle or even better completely exhausted following a long and intense fight.
If you get a chance to watch the red deer rut, grab it - it's a spectacular event and well worth the effort!!!!
There are quite a few sites not too far away where you can see red deer - Tatton Park has both red deer and fallow deer roaming the site – and beyond.
Tatton’s deer population has a long history, an extremely long history in fact!! The deer park was created by Royal Charter in 1290. They roam freely in over 1,000 acres of parkland.
During the autumn deer-rutting season, the behaviour of Tatton Park’s ancient deer herd changes.
Triggered by shortening daylight hours and cooler weather, the rut marks the time of year when stags compete to mate with females.
One of the best places to spot deer at Tatton is around the Old Hall on a quiet evening and during the summer months stags can often be seen along Knutsford Drive.
Please remember to keep a sensible distance away and use your zoom if you want to photograph them.