Ashton Court is very close to my home in Bristol and has two separate deer parks with large herds of red and fallow deer. Roe deer come into the unenclosed sections to the park, so all three native British species can be seen here.
Walking back home after a wet morning walk in the park, I came upon the older males of the red herd sitting out the rain. For most of the summer the stags hang out in a male creche, growing their antlers ready for the autumn rut. These are old nine, ten and eleven pointer alpha males with massive antlers, so the photographic intention was to show those magnificent antlers to best effect against the grey skies. An unmissable opportunity as they usually have their heads down feeding or are standing and quite unapproachable.
After a slow and cautious approach on foot, they seemed not to be worried by my intrusion, so I lay in the wet grass and inched forward, commando style, until their antlers were silhouetted against the sky, perhaps ten feet from the closest male. Even when I stood up to leave, cautiously I must admit, they remained calm and rested.
Red deer are not normally aggressive but the thought of the lethal damage those antlers could inflict made this a thrilling and quite humbling experience.
