Ruts

25 ruts along the East Atlantic Flyway, from Norway to Angola: when each one peaks, where to go on your own, what it costs and what you will hear. Wild animals only, no zoos.

Best time, place by place

Where to go, north to south

• Moose rut in the eastern forestsNorway · Rut · peak 25 Sep–10 OctSubdued compared with red deer: bulls' low grunts and 'oouh' calls, cows' long nasal moans, antlers thrashing in willow and birch, heavy splashing in bog; tawny owl and cranes overhead; rifle shots — the hunt opens 25 September.
• Wild reindeer rut on the high plateausNorway · Rut · peak 28 Sep–12 OctBulls' hoarse grunting and antler-clatter, the tendon click of a thousand hooves as a herd moves, rock ptarmigan, wind and snow; almost no anthropogenic sound on the inner plateaus.
• Red deer rut: Dyrehaven, Thy, Lille Vildmose, OksbølDenmark · Rut · peak 15 Sep–5 OctStags roaring across parkland (Dyrehaven's ~2,000 deer make it Europe's easiest big rut) or across dune heath in Thy with the North Sea behind; antler clashes, hinds, tawny owls; in Dyrehaven, also the Klampenborg trains.
• Fallow deer rut at the EremitageDenmark · Rut · peak 15 Oct–5 NovBucks' rhythmic belching groans from a traditional rutting stand a few hundred metres south-west of the Eremitage lodge, antler clatter, does barking; sika stags' eerie whistling in the same weeks.
• Red deer rutUnited Kingdom · Rut · peak 24 Sep–15 OctStags roaring and groaning, antler clashes, hinds barking alarm, animals crashing through bracken and heather.
• Fallow deer rutUnited Kingdom · Rut · peak 12 Oct–31 OctBucks' belching, rhythmic groans from rutting stands (true leks in some parks), antler clatter, does and fawns moving through leaf litter.
• Red deer rut in Killarney National ParkIreland · Rut · peak 1 Oct–24 OctRed stags roaring across the Killarney lakes with the mountains throwing it back; antler clashes; the eerie, rising triple whistle of sika stags from the oak woods; jackdaws and ravens at dawn; waterfalls at Torc.
• Red deer rut: Oostvaardersplassen and the VeluweNetherlands · Rut · peak 15 Sep–10 OctStags roaring across open polder grassland with no cover to dampen it — an unusually long, clean reverb; antler clashes; geese lifting off the marsh behind; on the Veluwe, roars from the heath edge with wild boar grunting in the rides.
• Le brame: red deer rut in the Ardennes forestsBelgium · Rut · peak 15 Sep–5 OctStags roaring in the beech and spruce valleys of the Ardennes — long, hoarse groans answered across the ridges, antler clashes in the dark, boar grunting, tawny owls; valleys give long reverb.
• Red deer rut: Darß beaches, Schorfheide, Harz, EifelGermany · Rut · peak 15 Sep–5 OctRoaring stags in pine-beech forest and, uniquely on the Darß, on open dunes with surf behind; antler fights, hind calls, cranes overhead at the Bodden in the same weeks.
• Brame du cerf — the great lowland forestsFrance · Rut · peak 20 Sep–5 OctStags roaring across flat oak forest and heath — long, resonant bellows, antler clashes, hinds and calves moving; tawny owls between the roars.
• Brame du cerf in the mountainsFrance · Rut · peak 22 Sep–10 OctRoars echoing between forested slopes with 3–4 s of valley reverb; several stags on opposing slopes answering each other.
• Ibex, chamois & isard rutFrance · Rut · peak 15 Nov–20 DecHorn clashes echoing off rock, snorting and hissing males chasing across scree, and the snow-muffled silence of winter valleys.
• Red deer rut in Val Trupchun, Swiss National ParkSwitzerland · Rut · peak 18 Sep–5 OctDozens of stags roaring simultaneously on the open alpine meadows of the 'deer arena' with the Trupchun walls echoing them back; antler clashes across the stream; marmots still whistling in September; chough flocks.
• Red deer rut in the Kalkalpen and GesäuseAustria · Rut · peak 20 Sep–3 OctRoaring stags in mountain beech-spruce forest with limestone walls behind — long echoes; in the Gesäuse the Enns rapids run under everything; antler fights, hinds, tawny and Ural owls.
• Red deer rut in the Dinaric forestsSlovenia · Rut · peak 20 Sep–5 OctStags roaring across dolines and beech slopes — the Dinaric forest gives long, clean reverberant tails; antler clashes, hinds barking, Ural owls and dormice in the same nights.
• Red deer rut in the Danube floodplain, Kopački ritCroatia · Rut · peak 5 Sep–22 SepDozens of stags roaring across flooded willow-poplar forest and reed — over water the roars carry for kilometres and stack into a continuous chorus; splashing chases, antler clashes, wild boar grunting, night herons and geese overhead.
• Sardinian red deer rutItaly · Rut · peak 1 Sep–30 SepRoars across Mediterranean maquis (the scrub has a drier, shorter acoustic than forest), with scops owls and nightjars.
• Red deer rut ('bramito')Italy · Rut · peak 18 Sep–10 OctRoaring stags echoing across beech-forest valleys, often dozens at once, with wolves occasionally howling in reply.
• Lowland deer ruts: Mesola red deer & fallow at San RossoreItaly · Rut · peak 25 Sep–15 OctStags roaring in a flat coastal holm-oak forest — a different acoustic from the mountains — and fallow bucks groaning in the pinewoods of San Rossore.
• Chamois & ibex rutItaly · Rut · peak 15 Nov–20 DecSnorts and whistles, horn clashes echoing off cliffs, and the stillness of snowy valleys.
• La berrea in the Cantabrian mountainsSpain · Rut · peak 15 Sep–30 SepRoars bouncing off limestone walls in high beech and oak valleys — a longer, harder reverb than the southern dehesa — with wolves occasionally answering and cowbells far below.
• La berrea — Monfragüe, Cabañeros & Sierra MorenaSpain · Rut · peak 18 Sep–8 OctStags roaring across dehesa and rocky sierra — three or four bellowing at once from the Monfragüe viewpoints while griffon vultures settle on the cliffs; wild boar and little owls in between.
• Iberian ibex rut, Sierra de GredosSpain · Rut · peak 15 Nov–15 DecHorn clashes cracking across granite cirques, males snorting and chasing, and the near-total silence of the high sierra in early winter.
• Brama do veado: red deer rut in the Serra da LousãPortugal · Rut · peak 20 Sep–15 OctStags roaring from the oak and chestnut gullies below the schist villages and across the open heath of the ridge — several at once at peak — with wild boar grunting, tawny owls and the streams in the valleys; a soundscape that did not exist here thirty years ago.

More: every animal and kind · what is on in October