Theme: Energy
Award: N/A
Photographer: Danielle Connor
During the rut you really do see the energy and power of Red Deer stags. A stag is a male deer but a rutting stag is usually between the age of 7 to 9 years old and are the strongest and biggest male. This particular rutting male had a very large harem on the day this photo was taken. I visited again a few days later and he’d lost nearly half of his hinds. This photo shows the rutting male chasing off younger males who are trying to mate with his females. This photo is special to me because as the time adrenaline was nearly making me shake – I really did think this deer would charge at me. You can see in the photo his ear is directly at me which meant he had heard me. Luckily I wasn’t a threat to him and he didn’t bother me.(Turned to black and white due to poor lighting conditions)