Velvet

The sun was sleepily dropping over the horizon casting a beautiful golden light over the fields in front of the house, catching in its glow the rump of one of my young stags. 

Bundling up and furtively creeping  in direct line of the hedge cuttings to act as cover, leaving the dogs with their noses glued to the glass indoors, I hoped for a shot. Although he's looking at me I think he only heard the not so silent camera click and continued munching but wandered further away on every click. 

His little antlers are in velvet at the moment which carries the blood supply and nerves to the developing tissue underneath. Come July when the velvet dries and the antler calcifies they will rub it off on trees cleaning them.

On my dog walk this afternoon I did get a very distant shot of a couple of stags in velvet bouncing away and despite Tilly's poor eyes she saw them, amazingly, with no hope at all of covering the distance! Bouncing in the Extra.