During the Month of October, I have always photographed the annual Red and Fallow Deer Rut at Bradgate Park in Leicestershire. Bradgate is my local patch as I only live ten minutes away from this beautiful park. So, I know the place well and know where to find the deer. Each year is different, and you don’t necessary find the deer in the same areas from year to year. Food availability is the key and that changes from year to year. This year it was a bumper crop of acorns and sweet chestnuts and so that affected the deer’s movements.
I spent about three weeks covering the Rut and because of that bumper crop of acorns, the early days of the Rut was challenging because the Deer were quite happy to stay in the sanctuary side of the park. There is a lot of Oak trees in there and so there was plenty of food. It had also been an extremely dry summer and the grasses in the other parts of the park, mainly the hills had a poor growing summer. These slopes in the higher parts of the park usually attract a lot of deer but those early days I only came across a few.
That said it was still good and I just had to work in a different way than I usually do. The early mornings were good in the lower river valley, especially for Fallow Deer. I like this lower area on cold clear mornings as you can work with the early morning light and shoot straight into it. I had a couple of beautiful mornings to work with and got some nice encounters with the Fallow Bucks as they made their way across the open meadows.
As the Rut progressed and we started to finally get some rain, the grasses in the hills started to grow and as the acorns were finally coming to an end, the Deer were forced to move out into the wider area. By this late stage the colours in the bracken that grows on the slopes were spectacular this year and a large group of Red Deer Hinds had decided to stay on the slopes during the day, feeding on the fresh grass. Of course, this group always had a dominant Stag in tow, and it gave me some great opportunities to capture the essence of the Rut in these rich Autumnal colours. I think this is one of the great things about Bradgate as the Rut is slightly later here than in other areas of the UK, which is usually over by the middle of October, so miss the rich intense colours of Autumn.
So, it was great to be back on my old stomping ground of Bradgate Park and looking out for the best places to find the Deer. It was a challenging Rut, but I much prefer it that way. I would like to say a big thank you to all the guys that joined me on the workshops this year, I hope you got some nice shots and learned something along the way. Liz has put up the dates for next year on the website so if you fancy joining me for a day photographing these iconic Deer, then please take a look.
