Get close to the deer at the Red Deer rut

You can find England’s largest red deer herd at RSPB Minsmere, and though they are elusive and shy for most of the year, in the autumn months they really make themselves heard.

From the end of September to the middle of November the red deer are in rutting season. One of nature’s greatest spectacles, the red deer rut sees stags clashing antlers in the fight for a mate. These fierce battles, which gave rise to that well known idiom, “locking horns”, are accompanied by the stags’ loud roars and bellows – though these bellows aren’t war cries but seduction calls to the hinds (female deer).

In the world of the red deer, the most attractive stags are the ones that roar the loudest (and the most often)!

Content provided by The Suffolk Coast