Running in the rain

Just returned from an amazing few days visiting friends and fishing on the river Halladale near Thurso.

These deer were spotted on the road between Helmsdale and Halladale. The landscape is simply incredible. We'd already seen a herd of over 100 deer in Glen Loth, and then came across this group. The got wind of us and started to run away. The rain fell at the same time and the photograph turned out quite well (for an amateur!).

I just love the way the sun is catching the soft velvet covering on their antlers. Only the male deer (stags) have antlers. The antlers grow each spring, they are made of bone and can grow up to 2.5cm a day! The growth is testosterone driven. The soft velvet protects the newly forming antlers. In the autumn, the stags testosterone levels drop and the velvet starts to peel off and the antlers stop growing. The stags then shed their antlers during winter and the cycle starts again the following spring.