Deer Rut

Connacht

Has anybody experienced the red deer rut yet this year ?
Reports and dates please folks.

Dusty87

It must have only just started has it? Il head down to the woods in a few days and see is there any action:)

Deer Hunter DL

the red deer rut is very busy in donegal at the moment

The Hill Billy

Interesting article on the rut from news.bbc.co.uk.

fryup

are stags very dangerous during the rut?

stevensi

I'd heard about that fatal fight the other day. On theAutumnwatch website they said they are going to leave the corpse there and already a juv Golden Eagle and White Tailed eagle have been spotted flying over the carcass. I'm sure they will have more on this on friday's show...

Alun

The unusual thing about these two is that Percy, the victor, is already 14 years old, pretty old for a red deer stag in the wild. Titus, the one who died, was younger and outwardly physically stronger than Percy and was clearly the 'next in line' for top stag when Percy would have died naturally.

There's also another stag, whose name escapes me, who only has one small antler with only one spike who has no idea of how 'inadequate' he is, and has killed other stags in the past apparently by using his single antler to stab his opponents.

It wasn't me!

Sika rut is on in Wicklow anyway, whistling aplenty in these parts.