it's over for another year.

Well its over until next year, the Rut of 2008 will be memorable, if not for its fragmented performance and relatively short skirmishes, Then for the pure aggressiveness of just one or two individuals. There are 24 Stags in this herd with hinds and young males making up the rest of the 90+ herd.

As per usual the stags were following the Hinds around apart for two of the larger males, who seemed to have their favourite spots. The larger of the two, Tom, was on the edge of the woodland amongst the bracken, with Jerry preferring the open field past the large oaks which had a good slope which caught the sun really nice.
I was fortunate enough to see these two large males cross boundaries on only two occasions, Jerry had, following the hinds, strayed a wee bit to close to the territory of Tom. It did not take long for a bit of parallel walking to start as Tom came bellowing out of the wood trailing a large amount of bracken on his antlers. Neither were put of by the hinds walking further of and soon had a bit of a set to.

Initially, neither were giving ground, until Jerry slipped and Tom got the upper hand, that was enough for Jerry and he was of, chased for a while by the victor. Jerry promptly gave chase to a young Stag who was sniffing around the hinds.

Jerry giving chase.

So where is all the action? Well, always check your batteries the night before, you go out!!!

So a few more from that morning:

Tom watching Jerry approach

A cold start to the day.

Sunrise.

God beams

Sleepy hollow!

There will be a short intermission whilst I do a bit of whizzing around the place!!! see you in three weeks I hope.
Thanks for looking
Paul