Quantock Hills. An Area of Outstanding Beauty

I’ve met and spoken to others who keenly follow the rut and it would appear that they have had similar experiences.

The best morning for me so far was Saturday when, on a perfect autumn morning in the forest as the sun rose, I spent the best part of an hour watching two large stags roaring at each other with several smaller stags seemingly caught in middle.  As I watched the deer without causing them any disturbance from behind a bank of bracken, I became aware that I wasn’t alone as what appeared to be part of the hedge walked past. The walking hedge was in fact a good friend of the AONB Service and local wildlife photographer Matt Peaster.  After a quick “good morning” Matt continued to walk along the hedge row and managed to get this superb photo of the larger stag.  More of Matt’s fantastic photos can be seen on the following websites:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/50768992@N05/

http://www.matthewpeaster.com/

The following day I returned with Boyd Hay, Forestry Commission Wildlife Ranger, to lead a guided walk for members of the public with the aim of seeing the rut.  After a short distance we heard a stag roaring (probably the one in the photo) but were not able to get a view so we made our way onto the common.  Other stags could be heard in the distance and we did manage to get some distance views on what was a truly beautiful and frosty morning.  Boyd and I repeated the walk for another group in the evening and although we saw deer on the hill including a large stag unfortunately none were heard.  It’s frustrating when you can’t share with a group what you’ve seen for yourself only the day before but that’s sometimes the reality of watching wildlife. However I hope we’ve encouraged those on the walk to venture out and try again.  If you’ve got your own experiences of the rut from this year I would love to hear about them.