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| Glen Lee from Cairn Camlet - pastel sketch on paper |
Stags to the right of me, stags to the left of me and stags afore me, roaring and bellowing, until the tingle of foreboding excitement within gives way to strategy and guile. Like a trooper listening to distant battle, my first rationale is to avoid but with a sense of curiosity riding high, my boots (with brains entwined) take me into the midst of a moorland war with all the antlered weaponry on one unpredictable side. A good recipe for an ill-natured stag would be twelve spear-sharp points on a one metre span of antlers, a body weight of around one hundred and forty kilos, no harem of hinds to keep him busy and a bucketful of hormone infused aggression. A few walkers have been attacked by stags during the rutting season and just this week two were attacked by a Reindeer stag on Cairngorm.
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| Sketching today |
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| Roaring stag |
In Glen Lee the roars coming from the surrounding hills above, was at fever pitch and all were threateningly carried on a wind that blew from them to me under a blanket of low cloud that lingers over Wolf Craig. The attraction to have a closer look sends me upwards onto the slopes of Cairn Camlet where the jousting arena lay before me with three stags guarding their harems, of roughly twenty hinds in each, and two bachelor stags, with no harem, venting frustration on their own declared patch by tearing at the heather with their antlers.
In the depths, to my other side, is the glen with its track and the Effock shepherd bringing his flock off the hill past the conifer trees where the White-tailed Eagles tried to nest before their tree was cut down. His multiplicity of pizzicato whistles, delivered from his Land-Rover, drown out the bass roaring from the hill for a while and then, driven by his dog, a thread of wool reluctantly filters past the crags underneath me as they shadow the main flock on the track, one hundred metres below.
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| Morning Sun, Craig Maskeldie - pastel sketch on paper |
Sneaking along the tree line below the centre of the rutting activity with the wind still in my favour and then by scuttling upwards on the ridge from Craig na Heron to Wolf Craig I eventually get an overview of the rut in this area. Each stag with a harem is kept busy with attempts to keep his hinds together and at the same time warding off infiltrations by rivals attempting a takeover, with every action punctuated with another session of roaring. One stag gets a shade too close to its watchful neighbour for comfort. They both square up then gallop at each other and as antlers clash in a head to head battle, all that pent up aggression is let loose in a fierce but short confrontation with massively powerful necks and shoulders bristling with muscled action. The darker stag has the determined advantage and soon the rival disengages in a running retreat to guard his harem.
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| Sketching today |
A stag with a pale saddle-back is centre-stage and he does look unusual with that pied appearance where the black peat staining from wallowing, on front and rear only, contrasts with his pale tan back. On the other side of Wolf Craig one stag is lying down, chin resting on a flat rock outcrop, he is motionless and looks totally spent with only one hind in proximity. While all around is noise and drama this royal seems to have had enough and only raises his heavy antlered, greying head when a pair of stags have a running stand-off not far away, but he has no will to rise to the challenge as his head sinks like a wounded soldier in acceptance of his deliverance back into the heather roots.
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| Hunt Hill from Wolf Craig - pastel sketch on paper |
Earlier, I had seen two Red Kites air dancing to the tugging wind near Gannochy, two Common Buzzards twirling above the loch-side hill of Monawee and one Black Grouse bolting on tightly curved wings from the new plantation down the glen but no sign of 'my' eagles except for one downy feather on top of Wolf Craig that glinted with a golden tan in the dying light diffusing along the horizon from beyond the hills at the head of Glen Clova.
A lone Raven anonymously 'prowked' over the moor in between the roars and burping grunts from the surrounding cacophony. Finally, the evening is dissolved into a passing shower that closes my drama and like a stage curtain being drawn, it turned minutes with the stags of Invermark into the measures of eternity. The hills tonight are still very much alive with the 'sound of music' as darkness is pierced by the stag's moorland nocturne!
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| The Confrontation |
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| The Engagement |
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| The Dark Corner dominates |
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| The Lock |
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| The Disengagement |
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| The Victor and The Vanquished |
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| Stag shepherding a hind |
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| Saddle-back roaring |
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| Stag wallow |
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| Heather tearing and scent marking |
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| Golden Eagle feather |
Notes;
All sketches and photos done on the day and are copyright of the artist.
Please be aware that it is illegal to disturb nesting eagles or other raptors and you may do so inadvertently in your journeys into the highlands. I do not recommend searching for any of the species mentioned in this blog because this may cause undue disturbance to them. With my knowledge of the areas described in this blog I can locate and observe protected species at a respectful distance usually from about 1000 metres for short periods of time only.
There is no stalking on Sunday, on other days I refrain from venturing into known stalking areas.
Map of the area
