The Deer Rut - Autumn 2018
The shortening daylight hours during the autumn months of October triggers the mating season of Deer - known as the Rut - from the latin "rugire" - meaning "to roar".
This year, I was hoping to witness first-hand the Stags fighting & practise some wildlife photography as well.
North West England mainly has two species of Deer. Fallow Deer, which can mainly be found within the parkland of stately homes - remnants of medieval hunting parks - and Red Deer, Britain's largest native mammal. After my unsuccessful attempt to view the rut with the wild Red Deer of Martindale, I decided to visit the three deer parks around Greater Manchester over the coming few weeks.
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Lyme Park
Located to the south west of Manchester, equidistant between Stockport & the Peak District lies Lyme Park, a 1300 acre National Trust property with stately home & Red Deer park within the estate.
A large portion of the north eastern area of the park is designated as a Deer Sanctuary, and out-of-bounds to visitors.
This was my first visit to Lyme, and I arrived at the gates just as they were opening at 8 am on a Saturday morning. I wasn't the first, but maybe the fifth car to enter the park that morning.
I was in luck, as even on the drive up the boulevard towards the car park, I caught sight of a stag on a hill near the roadside, no doubt keeping a watchful eye on the visitors to its home.
It was a cold but bright morning, and was glad I had packed my hat & gloves, as well as my down jacket. Camera out & at the ready, I set off on a walk I had found on the park's website.
- From the main car park, head up hill towards the House. Continue past, following the road to the left (north-west).
- After passing a few private buildings to your right, the park soon opens up and on the ridge to your left you can see the iconic 16th century hunting lodge & Grade II listed building known as The Cage.
I decided to turn off the road here, and follow the path along the ridge to The Cage. Just a minute or two along the path, I heard the unmistakable bellow of a Red Deer Stag. A few steps further, and I saw a couple of what I initially thought were large reddish-brown bushes. Pulling out my camera & setting to maximum zoom, I soon realised what they really were. Deer. Looking beyond, I could then see a whole herd of deer, dozens of them, roaming the opposite hillside & just further along the road I was previously walking.
I continued on towards The Cage, which offered a more direct view onto the opposite hillside within the out-of-bounds Deer Sanctuary. For whatever reason, I decided to do a lap around the hunting lodge. To my surprise, on the far side I was met by two female Red deer, known as a hind. They stopped still, lifted their heads & looked directly at me. I froze also, reaching slowly for my camera. I wasn't expecting to be this close to any deer so soon! Unfortunately, the next thing I know, a dog came bounding up to me, followed by its owner expressing his apologies. By the time I looked back, the pair of hinds had vanished.
Undetered, I headed back round The Cage onto the ridge back toward the road. There were quite a few dog walkers around, although most had the sense to keep them on a lead. The herd was still on the opposite hillside, roaming & grazing, with the odd bellow every now and then from the Stag's, just making the others aware they were there.
Initially I thought the herd was on the road heading east across the park, so was hesitant at getting too close to a Red Deer Stag - which can weigh as much as 240 kg (530 lb) but I spotted one or two joggers heading across from that way, meaning the road was clear, so thought I would head round back onto the road. As I did, I was a bit surprised to find there were flakes of snow in the air, although very light, it just shows how cold of a morning it was.
The road ran past the edge of the Deer Santuary, which was marked by small wooden signs every few yards. It was a gravel road, which was very noisy to walk on, so to try and approach the deer as stealthily as possible without disturbing them, I walked on the grass verge, keeping as silent as possible. The road crested over the top of the hillside & I stopped next to an autumnal woodland from which I could look down the hillside & see the herd in front of me.
This spot also gave amazing views over the Greater Manchester basin, from the skyscrapers of the city centre, to aeroplanes parked up at the airport, all the way over to Winter Hill & Rivington Pike beyond my hometown of Bolton.
As the morning went on, and the Stags began to wake, the bellowing became more pronounced. Eventually I heard a different sound - the clash of antlers.
Lyme Park Quick Info:
Post Code: SK12 2NR
Opening Times (Park): 08:00 - 18:00 Daily
Car Parking On-Site: £8.00 (free for National Trust members)
More Info: National Trust Lyme Website
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Dunham Massey
To the south west of Manchester & just a few minutes drive from both Altrincham town centre & the M56 motorway is Dunham Massey. A National Trust owned property, complete with 17th century Hall & accompanying buildings, gardens & medieval Deer Park. The park is surrounded by tall walls, keeping the resident Fallow Deer herd inside, but also meaning they have free-roam within the entire site.
The park covers much flatter terrain, with paths heading through the woodland & parkland. A large section of the southern part of the park is a designated Deer Sanctuary, although there are permissive paths which take visitors through this area.
On my first visit, one of the paths running right through the middle of the sanctuary was barred off - a sign advising it was closed due to the rutting season. When I returned a week later, however, the path had reopened.
Luckily, due to the relatively small size of the park, it doesn't take too long before you encounter the deer & on my first visit I encountered two female Fallow Deer (Doe's) grazing soon after walking through the first gate. From my very first impression, it was clear the Fallow Deer are smaller in stature to the Red Deer, & the males (called Bucks) antlers are a wider shovel-shape as opposed to the tree-branch shape on the Red Deer.
Dunham's 150 resident deer are also a lot tamer. Visitors are advised not to feed or get too close to the deer - after all they are still a wild animal, and you don't want to be on the receiving end of a swinging antler!
There were a number of occasions as I was walking the paths within the sanctuary, where I was looking into the woodland for signs of deer that I caught sight of a Buck sitting down in the ferns right near the edge of the path. Keeping as quiet & as still as possible so not to disturb them, and to show I wasn't a threat, it seemed to work gave me some great opportunities for some close-up shots! On another occasion, I was on the edge of the sanctuary watching a pair of Bucks grazing on the ferns and slowly making their way out of the sanctuary to end up grazing right in the middle of the pathways.
Dunham is not just a good place to view deer, but is home to plenty of other woodland wildlife. On my second visit I counted at least half a dozen Grey squirrels!
Dunham is a great place for all ages - and I saw plenty of families with young children enjoying the park. (Only children are allowed to ride bicycles within the grounds). There is also a National Trust visitor centre near the car park with information desk, shop, toilet facilities & cafe.
Dunham Massey Quick Info:
Post Code: WA14 4SJ
Opening Times (Park): 08:00 - 18:00 Daily
Car Parking On-Site: £7.00 (free for National Trust members)
More Info: National Trust Dunham Massey Website
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Tatton Park
No more than six miles south of Dunham Massey is the Tatton Park Estate. Covering an area of just over 3 square miles, Tatton Park is a vast parkland, with a 15th century mansion, on-site farm & the large Tatton Mere lake - a designated Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI).
I had been to Tatton a year earlier - but that was for a Tom Jones concert performed on a stage at the side of the mere. This time I was here for a completely different reason! I must admit I was slightly disorientated when I parked up in the main car park near the mansion & wasn't exactly sure where to go.
Deer have resided in Tatton Park since 1290 & the park is big enough to accommodate herds of both Fallow & Red Deer. It was the Red Deer Stag's I was on particular look-out for. On first driving into the park, I enquired with the chap on the toll booth where the best place was for the Red Deer stags, and he said although they can wander the whole park, maybe try the southerly Knutsford end of the park.
I picked up a map, and headed out of the car park & round past the mansion, heading east. There are one or two tarmacked roads running through Tatton Park, so I decided to begin by following the road south. The parkland here was quite open, with a few clusters of trees, and this is where I found the herd of Fallow Deer.
I headed away from the road over to the nearest cluster of trees from where I could watch the deer. It was quite a sizeable herd, which was spread out over a large area of the open parkland, and consisted of quite a few younger deer. They were more skittish than Dunham's Fallow's, and I couldn't get as close before they began to wander away.
I made a wide return back to the road south, and decided to do a circuit of Tatton Mere. Picking up the path on the eastern shore, it soon changed from open parkland to dense woodland - Dog Wood - which is another SSSI. The wood was in full autumn colour - browns, oranges & yellows on the trees & carpeting the path - the satisfying crunch of dry leaves underfoot. I spotted a concrete jetty by the shore through the trees, and wandered down to take a look. This gave a great view of Tatton Mere, and the park as a whole, and was able to see the mansion at the northern end of the park. Whilst stood on the jetty I heard a low rumble, which got louder, before all of a sudden a huge Boeing 747 Jumbo Jet flew over, having just taken off from Manchester Airport just two miles to the east.
Returning back to the path through the wood, I was surprised to find a gate at the bottom of the wood which actually lead out of the Tatton Park estate. The land around the southern end of the mere is not within the estate. I picked up a path which turned into a pavement which I then turned off to follow through Knutsford's 'The Moor' park. The other side of the park became a residential area, so after working my way around, I managed to find the road into the southern, Knutsford entrance of the park. Now heading north again, I followed the road, and just a few yards or so after entering back into the park, I turned off the follow a path and spotted five large red deer stags sat in a depression on the hillside.
This is what I had come for. These were large, magnificent beasts, so I made sure to keep a safe distance. Although they were keeping a watchful eye on me as much as I was with them!
I spent a good deal of time photographing them, there huge antlers looking very imposing. It was a clever location the stags had chosen - just out of direct view from the road, which meant most of the people walking past didn't even notice they were there! I was pretty sure at least two of the stags were asleep - or just resting their eyes - with the others keeping lookout.
Eventually, I decided to move on, and just as I began to head back to the path one of the stags stood up. Standing on all fours it hit home how much larger these Red Deer were.
Had I gotten a little too close for comfort? Or had it just wanted a stretch - I wasn't sure which - but decided to play it safe. This was their territory after all, so I backed further away, returning to the path leaving the five stags behind.
Following the path along the western shore, it was only a few minutes later when I heard an infrequent, but distinctive bellow. I headed away from the lake, crossing back over the road, and picked up a wide grassy path to a tree lined area known as the Bull Ring.
It was here that I found a large Red Deer herd. Mainly female hinds & young stags. There were two or three larger stags wandering around within the group, who were the source of the bellowing.
Once again, I stopped to watch. There was one stag in particular, one of the largest in the herd, which I had my eye on. It was stood still. Completely still. I watched it for a few minutes, before I started wondering if it was a real stag at all or just a life-size model. It did seem to have a mark on its left underside, which did suggest it could have been a wound from rutting. But still it didn't move.
I decided to look around the rest of the herd for any photo opportunities, and by the time I looked back at the 'model' stag it had its head down in the grass, grazing away.
I left the herd behind, following the track through woodland, and back over open pastures, before rejoining the road at the northern end of Tatton Mere, which lead me back to the car park.
Tatton Quick Info:
Post Code: WA14 4SJ
Opening Times: Park Opens 10:00 - 17:00 Tuesday - Sunday (Closed Mondays)
Car Parking On-Site: £7.00 (fee applies to National Trust members)
More Info: National Trust Tatton Park Website
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Summary
I feel that I only managed to catch the tail-end of this years deer rut, only witnessing any real rutting behaviour whilst at Lyme Park. I'll know for next year to start my pilgrimage a few weeks earlier next October, and now also know the best locations to watch the deer.
I'm hoping I won't leave it until October 2019 before I revisit these parks, and will be looking to head back over the coming months to see how the deer change throughout the year - from the males shedding their antlers in the spring, to them growing back, over the summer, before the rut starts again next autumn.
Mark
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