Well, a trip up to Richmond park to photograph the Red Deer rut turned out to be a bit of a photographic failure this year. Yes, I did see a few red deer but the rut was, to all intents and purposes over. Seems like it was an early season (along with everything else this year) and I missed it.  It was so quiet that I heard no bellowing at all.  But while the red deer were done, I spent some interesting time with a resting Fallow Deer buck.  So here are a few of the results:

Gear, Nikon Z8 and Nikon 500mm pf. The light was not very ‘good’ this morning and I spent much of my time waiting for some light to peak through from the otherwise thick grey ‘clag’ of cloud cover.  Mind you, the biggest issue of the day was the forest floor which was covered in sweet chestnuts.  I sat down to take these photos, right on masses of super spiky seed husks which pierced my skin through trousers and tops of socks.  Getting back upright without putting a hand on the floor or disturbing the buck was an unexpected challenge!