I've not gone anywhere to photograph wildlife in a while but thought it would be nice to spend a bit of time during a couple of days off from work visiting a few nearby estates which have deer in the grounds.
Around now (mid October) is the best time to see deer rutting. The rut starts towards the end of September as the days shorten, peaking through October and tailing off into November.
Wednesday was an early start up at Lyme Park, the weather was dull and windy with rain forecast just before lunch.
Walking up into the parkland and even before I had seen any deer the primeval sound of roaring stags could be heard reverberating through the hills and woodlands. After a few minutes I came across a small group of young stags having a little tussle between themselves, persistent roaring could be heard over the other side of the hill and the young stags seemed drawn to go and investigate.
Having sat for about an hour watching this group there were no physical interactions and the dominant stag was warding off any challenger with vocalizations and stance.
Roaring could still be heard all around so I left this group and headed over the next hill, there another harem could be seen on the opposing hill.
A third harem, which was the largest, was visible at the bottom of the deer sanctuary area, this is an area of the park with no public access.
Spots of rain were now starting to fall, so I headed back to the first harem I came across hoping to get some rainy pics. Unfortunately the direction the wind was blowing meant the rain blew straight on to the lens.
So as the weather intensified I called it a day and had a very soggy walk back to the car.
Thursday afternoon was spent at Tatton Park. It has a completely different landscape and feel than Lyme Park and the weather was warm and sunny. Here the deer are very easy to find and get close to, although I'm not sure this is a good thing as I witnessed a few people going way too close with their phones and small compacts to take pictures and obviously disturbing the deer.
Having had a walk round to see what was where I quickly noticed that there was significantly less roaring here, two good sized harem could be seen with a few younger stags dotted round in between.
Most of the vocalizations that could be heard were coming from a good sized group of Fallow deer.
With the Reds so quiet it was nice to watch the antics of the Fallow Deer, the bucks persistent repertoire of barky groans seemed to hold a good size harem of does, although while the buck was resting a number of them ran off to a nearby wooded area making a funny bleating noise as they ran.
After an hour watching the Fallows I spotted a few stags starting to stir, rubbing their antlers on a fallen branch and scratching about on the floor.
They started to head over to one of the held harems and it looked as if something was brewing,
but a roar or two and a quick charge from the dominant stag quickly dissuaded any further conflict.
Out of the two sites I'd definitely recommend a visit to both, ( http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/lyme-park/ ) & ( http://www.tattonpark.org.uk/ ) Personally this week I preferred Lyme Park, it was more challenging terrain and much more of a challenge to get a photo.
