The Wild Red Deer of Exmoor
The wild red deer that roam freely across Exmoor can frequently be found browsing around Hoar Oak Cottage although with their excellent camouflage you often need sharp eyes to spot them. More often they see, hear or smell you first and your only view is of them running into the far distance. However, there is no lovelier sight, especially when watched through the old parlour window just as the shepherd families must have done all those years ago. For the shepherds, the deer would have been a mixed blessing. They would, no doubt, admire their beauty but it would be tempered with the thought of losses of the precious and limited crops they were able to grow in the garden.
Red deer live in separate sex herds for most of the year, they come together during the autumn for the rut when the stags fight one another for claim of the females, the hinds. The stags are at their most vocal then with a deep, guttural call (belling); this can be heard from some distance and helps would-be deer watchers to locate them. Stag fights usually consist of little more than intimidation – when they spar, the heads are lowered and the antlers lock together. It is mostly push and shove, a trial of strength, although the sound of antlers clashing can sometimes be heard. Injuries are fairly uncommon but not unknown. When the rut is over the herds separate once more. The hinds give birth in early summer to spotted and well-camouflaged calves. They are remarkably difficult to locate for the hind grazes some distance away and the calf remains concealed for much of the day.
A lesser known fact about the stags is that they shed their antlers each year to grow new, larger ones. The antlers are cast about April and begin to regrow immediately becoming fully grown three to four months later. During that time they are protected by a soft, membrane – the ‘velvet’ and any damage to the horn is very painful. By the time of the rut the antlers have shed their velvet and become hard and strong. It is possible to find the cast antlers but they are notoriously difficult to spot. Antler judging competitions are frequently held on the moor and is a good way of seeing close-up the difference in size and weight.
Exmoor is famed for its hunting and, although a contentious issue, continues to be a popular attraction whether on horse or as a car follower. Exmoor’s origin as a Royal Forest has meant that the deer have always been hunted and it is probably because of the restrictions imposed by the Crown until the mid-1800s that Exmoor’s red deer descend from completely wild stock. Whatever one’s opinion on the subject, the hunting records gives us much information including referrals to the Hoar Oak valley. We can be reasonably confident that on Saturday April 7th 1945 the Hoar Oak shepherd family would have been watching with some excitement as the staghounds “…cast right up to Hoar Oak running fast up the water nearly to the county boundary…”
The Wild Red Deer of Exmoor, part of a series of blog posts exploring the flora and fauna that surrounds Hoar Oak Cottage.
