Rutting Season
I hadn’t seen my deer for a while. They are mine in as much as I know where they are and they delight me. Like my favourite view or my favourite song, mine by adoption. Nobody owns these deer, they are a wild herd.
There is a precious sliver of time in between my finishing work and darkness falling. During the summer of long evenings, it’s not a sliver, it’s an evening. Time to be outdoors until late. But in the autumn it truly is a sliver. Valuable in its scarcity, time to do something, just.
Walk to the end of the road, along the twitten, through the edge of town and into woodland. Mud underfoot now, slippery, clingy clay mud. A few trees have fallen across the path and they must be ducked under. At once trying to keep my footing and not bang my head.
An exchange of pleasantries with a dog-walking couple, then cross the slippery bridge. I’m in a woodland surrounded by young trees. I remember when the trees were less mature, it seemed as if someone had planted them. Now they have matured and feel wilder. There is the remains of a car next to a path. A tree has growth through the chassis and out of the sunroof. No hint of make and model, the original colour stripped away by rust. Soon it will be fragments.
Then I hear the repeated sounds, halfway between grunt and bark. Loud, clear and coming from the open ground beyond the trees. I get off the path, careful not to trip on the brambles, clamber down a slope and jump a stream. Guided by the sound, I approach the edge of the woodland. There is movement, Fallow deer walking slowly from one patch of grazing to another.
It takes a little while to read the scene. The females are moving about slowly, grazing, unhurried. The stag is the source of the noise. He is more agitated, moving quickly around his females. He has a full set of antlers, an impressive creature. I find a comfortable position under a tree with a better view. Now I can see another group to the south, more females and another stag. The stags are now trading grunts, they are wary of each other, although they are about 100 metres apart. It’s October, the rutting season. The males are forming and guarding their harems. There is a lot of testosterone out there, mating rights are at stake.
This is wonderful. I am the humble observer of another world. Gratitude is in my heart, thank you for this. Then, two gifts. There is a white deer in the southern group. Its companions merge into the scrub and long grass. The white deer has no camouflage, it also has no natural predators. The white deer, or white hart, used to have mystical significance. In Arthurian legend, the white hart always avoided the hunter. The pursuit of the creature symbolised the spiritual quest, a complex pursuit that always slipped through one’s fingers. Pale and radiant in the failing light, it’s easy to see how this animal would have been seen as different, special and important. Then, only about three metres from my left shoulder, a tiny Muntjac deer walks past, oblivious of my presence. It walks briskly left to right across my gaze, heading towards the dense scrub.
I feel blessed by this encounter, my deer are thriving, they are safe and well.
The sliver of daylight is slipping away, it’s getting dark. I turn, walk carefully through the woods, leap the stream and feel my way back to the path. In ten minutes I will be in the glow of a streetlight.
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