My annual autumn visit to Richmond Park

October wouldn't be the same without the annual visit to Richmond Park. Primarily this is to observe the Red Deer rut, but there's always something else that grabs my fancy too.

 

I wasn't at the park for the sunset like most die-hard rut observers are, and I barely covered a quarter of the park today, but within minutes of me arriving I had already found my first hormonal stag with a good sized harem of hinds.

 

 There were no other stags around to challenge him, so he was making the most of this relaxing time by sniffing out which hinds were in season. It was a fascinating behavioural act to watch, and the end nuzzling between the stag and the hind was really quite touching....

 

 

Even at 9am there were still pockets of mist in some of the shallower dips of the park. This made for some challenging and interesting photography....

 

 

 

 

Occasionally the only way of knowing there was a stag around was because his antlers were showing....

 

and the other way of knowing there were stags around were the many echoing haunting bellows.

Testerone levels at their very highest....

 

I found another stag with his harem of hinds. But this one was about to be challenged and gave me my second good observation of the day....

 

 

The stag with the harem was challenged head on by the above stag, but the almost invisible one laying down in the background was going to be the winner in more ways than one.

 

The usual stand off occurred first, where both stags walk parallel to each other sizing up each others size and antlers. Then the challenger launched a sudden head on challenge...

 

 As they clashed antlers (and the noise is as loud as it sounds to be), the stag that had been lounging around in the background took the opportunity to sweep in and round up the hinds....

The noise attracted other single mature stags, and all of a sudden there was mayhem...

 



 

The harem of hinds got split up in the confusion......

 

The young stag below was attracted by the noise, but made no attempt to join in. He's only about four years old and not as mature as the ones that were rutting....

 

 

The youngster below has lost it's baby spotted coat but is probably not even two years old. It lost it's mother during the commotion......

 

and the winning stag walked away panting before realising he might have won the rut, but during the process he lost all of his hinds, and not just to the one that had challenged him, but to the quiet observer in the background....

 

That's the nature of the rut. The biggest and strongest keep the most hinds, and therefore father the more fawns, but it only needs one maturing stag on the side lines to linger and bide his time and wait for a distraction, and then sweep in to take the hinds for himself.

 

As mentioned earlier, it isn't just the rutting season that keeps me interested in Richmond Park. Last week a fellow nature lover, Duncan, got some cracking photos of Hobbys hunting over Pen Ponds. These are the links to Duncan's Flickr page and his Wildlife Photography Facebook page .

The Hobbys have moved on since then but another favourite bird of mine, the Stonechat, were popping up everywhere. I counted at least seven in the small area of the park I was lingering around but I know others have seen sixteen and more during the last week....

 

 

Just like my patch, Richmond Park is known for it's resident breeding Kestrels, and I saw three together in the air before spotting this lovely perched out in the open...

 

 

I also grabbed a couple of shots of probably the last Darter I will see this year....

 

 

and back at the café before I headed home, I shared a bit of my late lunch with one of the hordes of Jackdaws that reside here all year round...

 

 

A great day, but a shame I missed two of my other friends, Susan and Elaine, who had visited the park for the same reason today.