Read on to find the answer to this often asked question.
Guest blog by Lisa Robinson, Intern Visitor Officer
The red deer rut is over! Well, it is as far as staffing the viewpoint is concerned, though there is still some bellowing in the mornings, so it might still be worth a wander up to the viewpoint for a few more days.
I’ve been up at the viewpoint on Westleton Heath every weekend for the last five weeks and have witnessed the rut season from almost the very start to the very end. It was really interesting watching the progression from just a bit of bellowing and posturing from the stags through to the mating and some full on fighting.
At the start the hinds seemed to all be together in a large group of over 100, and then as the weeks progressed there were clear groups formed of 15-20 hinds per stag. I saw one stag that had clearly lost a fight, and had to hobble off with a gammy leg and no hinds to play with at all!
At the peak of the rut season (mid October) the herd dynamic was clear, even from half a mile away. I remember one Saturday afternoon spent watching a stag trying to keep two others away from his hinds. Interestingly, the two competitors seemed to be working together to confuse the other! Very sneaky.
I learned a lot about red deer over the last six weeks. Before the rut started I read lots of information so I could try and answer visitors’ questions about the deer, but of course there were many things I didn’t know.
One of the most commonly asked questions that I (initially) couldn’t answer was “What is a monarch?” referring of course to Monarch of the Glen and the classification of stags. I did a bit of research and learned more than you would ever want to know about antlers.
It turns out that a stag with 16 or more tines (points) is a monarch, 14 tines is an imperial, and 12 tines is a royal. A tine can only be counted if it’s big enough to put a wedding ring on it, the first set of antlers are called prickets, and stags with no antlers at all are called hummels. Information overload? I’ll stop there. Suffice to say, the biggest stag I saw was indeed a monarch, with 16 tines.
The event itself was very successful with over 2000 visitors in all. Other than the deer, stone curlews and green woodpeckers were visible most weeks, as well as a couple of foxes ripping apart rabbits in front of the viewpoint. It’s been a fantastic few weeks and I can’t wait to help at more RSPB events in the future. I'm now busy helping to plan our Christmas events.
A royal stag (count the tines - there's 13) by Jon Evans