Williamson's Weekly Nature Notes- October 22 2008

The peak of the rut is usually October 23 or thereabouts, depending on the weather. As the full moon, the Hunters' Moon, is on October 14, usually with its fine weather, that indeed could be the week.

Bucks have been pawing at the ground wherever a convenient twig hangs down to touch their antlers. This they like to play with, nibbling and hitting it continually to leave their scent there and on the ground in the dust that they churn up with their fore feet. Like red stags, they love to decorate their antlers if possible with grass or weeds or sweetcorn or old straw from a stack.

Many years ago, a fallow buck near here attacked a black polythene stack cover, ripping it partly off then working his way along its bottom fringe, tearing off a segment as he went.

The wretched animal went all round the stack, tearing off a longer and longer strip until finally he arrived back at where he had started. Only then was he able to escape his day-long encounter. But it was not really an escape, for the 30 yards of material was firmly fixed to his antlers and there was no escape.

Every time he moved, the polythene crackled about his head and he was terrified. He ran for it, galloping across fields with this enormous black thing chasing him, or so it seemed. However he tried to hide it was no good; there was no escape. He could not be caught and so a stalker had to shoot him. Such cases, though not usually so spectacular or perhaps bizarre, are not uncommon.

I have seen many fallow bucks with bits of barbed wire entangled in their antlers and sometimes with polythene shopping bags or fertiliser sacks. One had a black camera case wound around his ears and eyes.

Those in Petworth Park will often have hard rush and grass spangling their antlers like an Ascot hat.

Perhaps the most extraordinary sight I ever witnessed was a Pere David deer, an escapee from a zoo of course, which had found a rubbish tip on a local farm.

This is a huge animal, of course, with a face that is a cross between a donkey and a moose. It stood proudly in a field of barley, covered with rubbish festooned about its face, hoping to attract a mate. The nearest one was behind bars at Marwell 40 miles away and the get-up was completely lost on the rest of the world.