Red Deer Stag Eating On Visit To Glen Lyon In The Highlands Of Scotland

Tour Scotland travel video of a Red Deer Stag eating on a visit to remote Glen Lyon, Scottish Gaelic: Gleann Lìomhann, in the Perthshire Scottish Highlands. The glen has been home to many families, including MacGregors, Lyons, Menzies, Stewarts, Macnaughtans, MacGibbons and the Campbells of Glen Lyon. Red deer are Scotland’s largest surviving native wild land mammal. Red deer are a distinctive rusty red colour in summer turning to a brown winter coat. They have a short tail and a pale rump patch. Males are called stags and have antlers up to a metre long. These branch like horns drop off in the spring and are grown again in the summer ready for the autumn rut, or breeding season. Stags live in small wandering groups, except during the rut when they become solitary and fight other stags for the control of a hind herd. Red deer are a native species having migrated to Britain from Europe 11,000 years ago. Peak times of activity are at dawn and dusk. In the Highlands of Scotland red deer use the open hills during the day and descend to lower ground during the night. Red deer graze on grasses and dwarf shrubs e.g. heather and bilberry. Woody browse, e.g. tree shoots, is taken when other food is limited during winter. While preferring woodland and forest habitats in England and southern Scotland, red deer can adapt to open moor and hills as they have in parts of Scotland and south west England. Native stock are common in the Scottish Highlands, Dumfriesshire, Lake District, East Anglia and the south-west of England. Feral stock are present in the north of England, north Midlands, East Anglia, the New Forest, and Sussex. All photographs are copyright of Sandy Stevenson, Tour Scotland, and may not be used without permission.

View the most recent Tour Scotland photographs