Not photographing in the Rut at Bradgate Park…

Last year, I photographed my first ever rut at Tatton Park in Cheshire, it was an amazing spectacle to see firsthand, and I got some lovely images from my day there. This year, I wanted to try my had with some ‘wilder’ deer. So, I got chatting with Ollie and Jordey and we decided to head to Bradgate Park in Leicester. While this was still a deer park of sorts, the parkland has a lot more woodland and brash for the deer to hide in, as well as an off-limits sanctuary. While these wouldn’t be completely wild, I feel that they were a bit less used to people and the scenery was a lot nicer without throngs of cars and people cluttering up the backgrounds.

It was a very early start for me, as I headed out at 0520 in the morning, to get to Jordey’s where we’d pick up Ollie before heading to the Park. We arrived a little after 0830 and straight away there were some deer down by the entrance.

I got my first couple of frames, and the one below I am really happy with. (I am also going to thank Lightroom’s amazing denoise feature, which I ended up using a lot on these images as I was hand holding for the most part with very high ISOs).

While down on the entrance road, we could see and hear a lot of deer moving in the deer sanctuary. We looked to see if we could get any images, but it was incredibly dark here. Another photographer came past us, saying she’d been quite a lot this season, but due to the bumper crop of acorns this year, the deer were tending to say in the sanctuary over venturing out into the park.

We tried not to let that piece of information put us off, given how far we’d come to be there. We could see some Fallow off up in the more open area of the park, so headed up that way, where we got a lovely encounter with a Fallow Buck, on the edge of some trees.

It was incredibly quiet, but we could see some reds off in the distance, so decided to head that way and see if anything would materialise. As we made our way over, a green woodpecker flew past and very briefly landed in the grass, so brief was its visit, that none of us got a chance at getting an image, though it was nice to tick off my first sighting of one.

We continued on a saw some tiny Goldcrests, which Jordey stopped to try and photograph. I continued on up the hill to try and sneak up on the big stag, as I was creeping over to the wall to pear over, it had done a similar manoeuvre and was now up ahead of me on my side of the woodland. We surprised each other, and I tried my best to get some frames of him in the woods. This proved difficult as he kept on moving and when he stopped I was way too zoomed in and cut his antlers off 🤦‍♀️

With the stag continuing to move on, we headed off for a walk around some of the parkland, in the hopes of coming across some more deer. We could see some in one of the walled off woodlands, that you were not allowed into, which was a shame.

On our strolling, we came across some Skylarks in the ferns, so stopped to take some images.

We carried onto the tower, having not seen much, then when I was talking to camera. I spotted a pair of large antlers, moving around in the ferns! I called up to Ollie and Jordey, to see if they could see it, and they confirmed that yes, they could. I made my way up the rest of the hill, and we got into position.

Now, I did struggle a bit with my height at this point. At the grand size of 162cm (5ft 3” for all you Americans), I was having a bit of an issue with being able to see and photograph over the ferns…. We moved back to where there was a tiny bit of higher ground and took our images from there.

I am over the moon with these images, as they were what I was hoping for, a red stag, in the ferns with a smooth background. I am sure that you are the same as me and can see where you’d like to have done better with your images, and for me, if I was able to, I’d have liked to have been a bit more ahead of him, or have him look towards us. But that wasn’t to be as there was just no way for me to see over the ferns in any other position, and he was quite intent on not looking our way.

He eventually moved on to join a group of young spikers, this signalled to us that we had well and truly missed the rut, as the males would not be back in their bachelor groups otherwise. They stayed grazing below the tower for a while, and while I tried to get some images of them below it, they didn’t really work out, so I was happy when they all moved back into the ferns.

I focused on the spikers, who were in much shorter ferns than the larger stag was, and I am really happy with how these images came out.

This was when the first of the rain showers came in, we decided to head to some woodland to hide from as much of the rain and icy winds as possible, and had an early lunch. Once the shower had passed, it was beautiful sunshine, so we headed back out into the park.

At this point in the day (just past midday), and with the sun out, everything nearby decided to have a nap. We hung around for a bit, in the hopes that the more flightily fallow would get up to something, but alas, that was not to be. So, we continued our walk about.

We were heading towards the café, when the next storm starting some come though, this time bringing some hail! We took shelter under some trees, and once past, carried onto the café for a much-needed hot chocolate.

Down here, there were a couple larger red stags and some fallow, but these were also having a nap now the sun was back out. We continued to walk down the main path, back towards the entrance, hoping to see, at least, some action, given how close to the sanctuary we were.

There was a promising fallow buck, and I am happy of one of the images that I captured, but he was a quite a way off and not looking at heading our way. Fortunately for us there were some animals nearby, that were obliging, in the form of some peafowl. We stopped to get some images of these on the old walls, and I am really happy with how some of these came out.

After our peafowl interlude, we continued to walk down the main path, looking into the sanctuary for any potential images. The sun was back out and was now behind the woodland, with dappled light making it’s way though the leaves. We came across a small herd of young fallow does, and stayed with them for a while. There were some proper tiddlers in with this group, and I while they are not the best of the best, I did get some nice images.

While we were here, we also go a surprise visitor drop in, in the form of a Kingfisher! I perched high on one of the branches of the oak tree next to us, and I managed to get some images of it, before it continued upriver. Again, while I wouldn’t give these images five stars, it was a nice surprise and really made the day.

Before we called it a day, we headed back into the park and the sunshine to warm up a bit, and to give it one last go with the deer. We thought we would get lucky with the fallow, as one heard, with buck in tow, was headed right towards another buck. However, they seemingly acknowledged each other before going back to sleep!

We did however get some nice images of the little birds enjoying the insects that had come out in the evening sun, and I got (in my opinion) an amazing image of a Dunnock, in the sun. By shooting down the length of the wall, even at f6.3.

At this point, with no real deer action to talk of, we decided to call it a day and head home. While the day didn’t go as hoped, it was still nice to get out in nature with friends and at least try to get some nice images. It was also a good lesson for next rutting season to head out early in October!

Useful Links:
Follow Ollie: https://www.instagram.com/outwithollie.uk/
Follow Jordey: https://www.instagram.com/lake_side_photography_
Bradgate Park: https://www.bradgatepark.org/