Oct 9th Holkham Hall

Red Deer Stag

A bellowing roar echoes through the dull, murky air of the morning. Another travels to my ears coming from somewhere else. A third responds, then the first replies once again. Their voices loud and far carrying, sounding like a squeaking door and a hippopotamus. I am at Holkham Hall and what I was hearing was the sound of roaring red deer stags. The annual rut has begun once again.

Red Deer harem

The rutting season is a big highlight for me each year and Holkham Hall is always a great place to witness it. There are two species of deer on the estate here; the fallow and the red. Whenever I visit this place, it is usually the fallow deer that perform well in front of people. The red deer, on the other hand, are not as easier to get close to and I have never properly seen them in action. The best I've managed to get was one bellow and that's about it during my previous visits. Today, they were in full voice as the dominant stags were claiming and defending their harem of females. They were all in the woods at the far end of the other side of the manor and you could hear them from the opposite side of the estate.

One harem was out in the open of a field and was guarded by a big, impressive stag. As there was little cover to creep nearer to it for a closer look, we decided to just watch from a distance. But there was another harem in the woods nearby with a very vocal stag chasing off the competition and sniffing the females rear ends to check if they were ready to mate or not. This harem was much easier to approach safely and without disturbing them. We managed to watch them for quite a while as the stag demonstrated his testosterone driven behaviour. A few younger stags arrived on the scene, but he was able to chase them off with ease and without a fight. We absorbed his bellowing roars with admiration and excitement. To listen to him and to watch him in action was thrilling. You could hear his rivals reply to his taunts in the distance from all over the estate. Though I was a little disappointed not to witness any clashes of antlers, which would have topped the encounter nicely.

This one was testing his antlers out on a branch

Holkham Hall

Fallow Deer

On contrast, the fallow deer were on the quiet side today. The large herds were congregated on the field and small wood close to the car park and were more relaxed than the reds, busy grazing than rutting. There were a couple bucks that were in the mood and were making a little bit of noise, producing a more grunted belch than bellowing roar. But for now, the majority of the fallow deer were not in the mood to rut. I expect it will be a lot different closer to Halloween, but for now, it was the red deer who were the most entertaining.