** Fallow Deer rut. **

At the end of last week Pam took me to Knowle Park, Sevenoaks to see if I could see a Fallow deer rut, as I have done over the past 2 years.  We didn't arrive until after 12pm. After a bit of lunch I went on my walk-a-bout to see what was showing, or should I say hiding. I walked towards the ice house and circled around making my way back towards the car park via the grassy hill where I saw the rut last year. There was nothing out of the ordinary seen just the usual groups of Fallow and Sika doe's and young males scattered here and there.
I was hoping to see one of the white harts that I saw last year but it was not to be, well it is a big area, but it did seem like wherever I went I was accompanied by Ring Necked Parakeet's.
Once at the top of the hill I spotted a couple of people taking pictures of what I could only assume to be a stag.
Rather than walk towards them I turned left and went down the slope towards the track that leads to the golf course. Something that was a bonus  was that the wind was in my favour. When I was on the track I started to walk towards where they was at and then I saw the stag.

I was lucky to get  this picture because as you see it started to move off. This was due to one of the photographers trying to get a bit too near.
When it did move on the stag came in my direction, so I moved behind a small tree out of sight.
Once he move across the track the females that was near him followed and began grazing in a large grassy/brush area where a stag Sika deer was at.

I watched these deer for a while when something to the left of me caught my eye, it was another Fallow stag walking down a slope. Was this what I came here hoping to see? The answer was yes. The stag I had been watching looked up and started walking towards him and the females followed slowly behind him.
The 2 Stags met and ignored each other, females grazing, then I noticed a behaviour that I saw last year. They started walking parallel to each other, turned and stared at each other for what seemed ages, and then it kicked off.
Now the last thing on my mind was take some pictures, I was to engrossed in watching the rut, but then I said  to myself " You better try and get a couple of shots of this before it ends".
I did my best but they couldn't have picked a worse place for it, well photograph-wise. As you can see in the pics, definitely not ideal.

 

When this rut came to a end the victor was the one that I had been watching, and he saw the loser off with such dominance by chasing him away for quite a distance, across the track, up the hill and then down the track towards the golf course.
On the way back to the car park I came across a couple of large fungi, which I have yet to look up the name of, perhaps someone can beat me to it. I have used one of my gloves to give some idea of size.

 

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Below is a few pictures that I took of last years rut.

 

 

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Fallow deer. White hart last year.