‘Monarch’ myths of the fighting stags
This is the time of the year when the red deer stags drift away from their summer herds and search out where the hinds are.
The stags will have got over the casting, and regrowth of their antlers and will have fed well in the summer to get fit for the rut.
There are probably more myths about deer in the rut than there are any on other mammal.
To start with there really is no such thing as the "Monarch of the Glen" so epitomised by various sources.
The idea of a stag holding a group of hinds for the whole of the rut, the "Monarch", does not happen.
Even a mature stag in good condition will only last a short while until other stags take over the hinds.
The other major myth is that of the stags fighting "to the death", the image which has been put put over by the various media.
The filming on the Isle of Rum by BBC’s Autumnwatch programme showed the stags going from one fight to another and indicated some being killed on the way.
In reality fights are rare and the roaring and strutting about is more like our behaviour in that actual physical fights rarely happen.
It also seems to be the case that the antlers and their size are not as important as we thought.
Just occasionally you get a stag without antlers, one that is then called a "hummel".
In all the years I have stalked, photographed and watched red deer I have only seen three hummels.
Most estates go to great lengths to take out these stags and the reason revolves around the rut.
Without the drain on resources to cast and re-grow antlers the hummels are likely to be heavier than the normal stags.
So hummels can roar, strut around and look bigger than "normal" stags.
Without much fighting the hummels will often mate with the hinds.
Another problem with red deer is just how pure they are these days.
For some reason the hybridisation between the red deer and the sika deer is not mentioned.
The last I heard was that the situation over the hybrids is out of control, but perhaps some readers can tell me just what the situation is at the moment.
Perhaps the cynics are right in that the days of no pure red deer in Scotland, apart from one or two areas like the Isle of Rum, has arrived. Let us hope not.
One of the problems with stalking red deer at this time of the year is the disturbance by walkers, climbers and others and in some cases it can be serious.
I well remember a long stalk after a red deer stag in early October that ended in disaster.
I was on a hill on the southern Sutherland border and had taken well over an hour to get to a reasonable place to shoot the stag.
By then the stag had moved high into a corrie and I nearly gave up as I was soaked through, crawling along wet ground.
At last the stag stopped to look at some hinds and I had a takable shot.
The stag was near the summit of the hill and I waited for it to turn just right when suddenly there was a noise nearby.
A lady dressed in red with a huge red hat had suddenly come over the nearby ridge and sang "I go to the hills when…."
Needless to say, the stag
was gone and I never saw it again.
The lady, meanwhile very nearly never saw that hill again!
These days you can avoid such disturbance as Scottish Natural Heritage and various estates have schemes whereby you can find out where to walk and when.
The detail covers over 70 estates mainly in the Cairngorm National Park, the Breadalbane area and on the west coasts.
Many other estates have their own schemes in operation.
If you go onto Google or SNH and look up under
stalking access you can get the information on where and how to contact the various estates.
Many estates I know had notices on the ground. So there should be no excuses at all on either side for such disturbance.
Gannets in the eye of a storm
THE birds that stole the show this week could have been virtually anywhere around the coast but, for me, they were at Burghead, east of Inverness.
Normally on this peninsula the gannets are way out to sea with only the occasional one coming in close to the shore.
But last weekend was different.
There was a real storm over the sea, and even the gannets were coming in close. Indeed they were so close that some of them were along the coastline itself and flying directly over me, affording some superb views.
Having been fortunate to visit many of the gannetries around the coast I wondered if any of the birds was from one of them.
I do not know if the storm was affecting the gannets but not one of them was feeding, which was very unusual.
They just seemed to be moving south, and many of them were grouped in small parties of two adults and a very young juvenile.
Most of the juveniles were so brown I wondered if they were birds of the year.
These would take around four years to attain their mature plumage and breed.
To start with they wander the seas but then, in the third year, often go back to the gannetries and, during the breeding season, form "clubs" where the immature birds gather within the colony. A quite remarkable bird, the gannet.
