Red deer

Appearance

The red deer is a large, long-legged deer. Its summer coat is reddish brown, its winter coat greyish brown and longer. The rump patch around the tail is pale, yellowish white. Stags grow a neck mane in winter.

Only stags carry antlers, which are cast every year – usually between February and April – and regrown. Antler growth is complete by midsummer, when the stag rubs off the velvet.

Stags are considerably larger than hinds: in the Carpathian Basin a mature stag often weighs 150–250 kg, a hind 80–120 kg.

It prefers extensive broadleaf and mixed forests where dense cover alternates with open feeding areas such as meadows, clearings and farmland. In Hungary the strongest populations live in the forested hills of Transdanubia – Zala, Somogy, Baranya, Tolna – and in the North Hungarian Mountains, but it also occurs in larger forest blocks on the Great Plain.

A social species: hinds live in herds with their calves and young animals, while stags form separate groups or live alone outside the rut.

The rut lasts from mid-September to early October. Stags roar loudly, gather harems and fight rivals by locking antlers. Calves are born in May–June.

Mostly active at dusk and at night, it feeds on grasses, herbs, buds, shoots, acorns and crops.

• Track: elongated, pointed hoof print; 8–10 cm long in a mature stag, smaller and narrower in a hind.
• Droppings: the stag's are blunt pellets, often dimpled at one end; the hind's are more pointed.
• Fraying and bark stripping: stags rub the bark off young trees when cleaning antlers; stripping bark in winter is also typical.
• Wallows: muddy hollows used for wallowing, often with rubbed trees nearby.

The trophy is the antler, measured under the international CIC scoring system. The score takes into account beam length, coronet and beam circumferences, number and length of tines, antler weight, spread, and beauty points (colour, pearling, crown). The gold medal threshold is 210 CIC points.