We have a good population of Red Deer at Forsinard Flows, the staff here are lucky enough to see them nearly every day (occasionally they wander through the office garden!). The red deer rut is one of Scotland’s classic wildlife spectacles. To hear the roaring of the stags and witness first hand the power of two stags as they fight for hinds is something you will never forget. But it is also something that not many people are lucky enough to see. For this reason we decided we would hold a special weekend of 4x4 Safaris, with the aim of witnessing the rut in the midst of the beautiful Flow Country.
Watching the deer. Photo copyright Jonathan Pruskin.
The rut is the name given to the breeding season for deer, with Red deer rutting in October. Female red deer (hinds) only come into season for a short period in October, so stags must do all they can to make sure they are the ones that manage to breed with the most females. They have what is called a harem mating system, in that one stag will try to round up many hinds. After spending the summer grazing, the red stags have been putting on weight and growing a set of antlers. The bigger the antlers the better as the strongest individuals and those with the largest antlers have a better chance of keeping their herd of females away from other stags. The stags will wallow in peat, sometimes adorn their antlers with tussocks of rushes and roar and bellow to show off just how strong they are; you may have heard this if you are ever out walking in October. Each stag must be constantly vigilant, keeping an eye on where their hinds are and also for any approaching rivals. If another stag does approach they will parallel walk to get the measure of their potential opponent, and if it is not obvious who is the larger and stronger of the two this is when they will clash. A fight between stags is a test of strength; they will push each other with antlers interlocked until the weaker of the two backs down. There is no pride in defeat with stags and once the fight has been won the loser will be chased rapidly away whilst the victor returns to his hinds. It really is a spectacle.
Red Stag. Photograph copyright Jonathan Pruskin.
This is probably why we had such a great turnout for the safaris, instead of holding two as we had planned we ended up holding four! They were held over the weekend of Saturday the 4th and Sunday the 5th of October. Two safaris being held in the morning and two in the evening, as these are the best times to hear the stags roar and to see the rutting behaviours. Over the four safaris we had fifteen people attending. Although there was a definite autumn chill the weather held and the tea and delicious home baking kept everyone happy and warm whilst we watched and listened to the stags roar all around us. The two evening safaris were lucky to see the big sky sunsets and all had views across the flows to Morven and the Beinn Griams.
As well as plenty of red deer sightings( Which were of course the stars of the show!) we were lucky to see some of the other wildlife found on the Flows. A female hen harrier hurtling past the truck was a lucky spot, as well as hunting merlin, the comical red grouse and a snipe that wasn’t very good at hiding; we watched it for 10 minutes as it tried to hide next to the truck! A definite highlight for one safari were views of a golden eagle, hunting across the reserve. On every safari we saw a pair of roe deer, our other native deer species. These daintier cousins of the red deer were grazing in amongst some of the areas being restored on deep peat from non-native forestry back to blanket bog. These areas have also proved to be very attractive to the red deer including during the rut.The safari took us through some of the vast expanse of the blanket bog of the Flow Country and as well as witnessing the red deer rut visitors were able to learn about some of our management work we undertake here on the reserve.
Anna with a guest. Photograph copyright Jonathan Pruskin.
The safaris were a great success; with both wonderful views of the Flows and amazing wildlife I don’t think they could have gone any better, so we hope to run them again next year! We hold 4x4 safaris on the last Sunday of every month, from May until September, with the special Red Deer Rut safari in October. So if this is something you would like to do yourself then contact the reserve when the visitor centre reopens after the winter in April 2015. If you have any questions or queries about the safaris or the reserve in general please email us at Forsinard@rspb.org.uk or call us on 01641 571 225.