Big Old Boys

The drizzle has returned to the Forest and as usual the place goes monochromatic, as do I when it comes to blipping in these conditions.

I was in our local chatting to a deer handler (mainly about last night's rugby, but also about deer) when he suggested that these guys might be a good photo subject.

These chaps, unlike many of the other deer on the estate, will be allowed to grow their antlers out. They're on the old side now, and now that their velvet production days are behind them, they'll will be sold off to hunting estates, spending their last years roaming wild hillsides of game estates; they'll get a taste for the wild but will also run the gauntlet of trophy hunters, keen to bag a Big Red.

It may seem  a slightly macabre ending for the stags, but I guess it's no worse than a trip to the abattoir; after all these deer will be standing in a paddock and won't know anything of their demise as they're taken down by a hunter over 100 yards away. They won't suffer, nor will they feel stress. Surely that's a better end than being trucked to a meatworks...