Rutting Deer

Had a day visiting Bradgate park yesterday hoping to capture the Red and Fallow Deer going through their annual rut, but all was quiet on that front, still had a great day meeting up with some friends while visiting this lovely landscape in deepest Leicester.  The day started great, with clear skies, stars shining bright the signs of a great sunrise were very promising but things changed as they often do with the great outdoors and a blanket of thick and heavy fog covered the whole area for some time, making the ideal environment for the Deer to disappear before your very eyes.

The rut hasn’t really started yet I feel due to the weather being so mild after such a cold start to the year, but as I was there the air was thick with not only fog but male testosterone filling the air as you could smell where the males where marking some of their spots in readiness for their annual rut that will start any day now.  Over the next three weeks I have several One To Ones booked in there and another place in Cheshire, I still have a few dates free should you wish to come on one of these days at Bradgate and in Cheshire contact me for more details

I love the effect weather has on an image in particular fog and mist as this adds a real and different feel to a photo which when changed to black and white it really takes on an appearance of its own, very reminiscent of the very old Victorian photographs you see from time to time. The image below was taken early last year as the sun was coming up it started to burn off the fog and mist revealing this male Brown Hare sitting motionless in this field where again the mist has added at great atmosphere to the photo.

In between waiting for the Rut to start I have spent a lot of my time waiting for the water level to drop on a local river. Over the last week or so we have had so much rain near my Staffordshire home, where the river Trent has flooded the area including the place where my hide is. I have been watching these Kingfishers now for some time, where their activities keep me smiling all day, it’s a site I have developed and worked on myself over the last 2 months.  I have returned several times over the last week or so and there was no sign of them including the young female I have become very fond of there as she tires to claim part of this river as her own with her ever present parents trying to move her on.  So it was with great relief I saw her for the first time in a week on Tuesday coming close to where my hide was,  perching on the reedmace that grows there.  A few snaps then she was gone but enough for me to see her and witness she’d survived the flood.