Gentle presence
A photo essay on deer spanning themes of culture and biology.
“Fleeter be they than dappled dreams
the swift sweet deer.”
-E.E Cummings (from ‘All In Green Went My Love Riding’)
Deer are revered in many different cultures and often symbolise gentleness, grace, and a connection to the natural world, or another world entirely.
The Cherokee for example, view deer not just as animals, but as"other-than-human persons", or beings with sentience and spiritual importance beyond most other animals. In Chinese, the word for deer (鹿 - lù) is a homophone for prosperity 祿 (lù). In Japanese culture deer are thought of as messengers of the gods and in Norse culture they are also thought to be a tether between earthly and divine worlds.
The deer I saw while walking through Richmond Park certainly struck me as otherworldly.
Having grown up in Britain with no strong cultural traditions, I wasn’t made aware of any significant cultural ties to deer. However, after some digging it’s evident that deer beyond being an important food source, represented guidance to my ancestors.
In Mayan culture, as explored in The Beast Between: Deer in Maya Art and Culture, the branching of deer antlers symbolised connections between stars, and celestial pathways guiding souls through their celestial journeys.
To the Celtics, deer were messengers or guides of the otherworld1. Female deer also symbolised an innocence or a magical moment when it was glimpsed in the forests of Scotland, the little red deer were considered “fairy cattle” due to a myth that faries milked them on the mountaintops.
I find it quite fantastic that in distant lands, vastly different people from different time periods all saw this animal and decided that it was simply beyond this reality. Like it was too precious, too regal, too innocent, too elusive, too beautiful to simply reside alongside humans. Why is that?
Deer can be very easy to see when sitting proudly in a herd. On the other hand, when they are alone like this little fallow deer, they are more skittish. Their survival instincts kick in, and the realisation that it’s just them against any lurking predators causes them to slink silently through the bushes; in this way, they come to embody the mysterious aspects of nature.
In groups, deer rely on each other to detect danger; they communicate through vocalizations and body language to alert one another of threats. For instance, when disturbed, they may snort or stamp their hooves to alert others around them. Interestingly there seems to be substantial investigation into warning behaviour in White-tailed deer, but less literature (and YouTube footage) is available for other groups.
Another fascinating thing I learned about deer while in Richmond Park is their symbiotic relationship with jackdaws. I saw these birds in the masses hopping around a herd of does and plucking things from their fur. It’s common for jackdaws to take loose fur that deer shed at the end of winter to use for their nests!
However, I observed this behaviour in September (it was a very warm week for England but it was still only a few weeks away from harsher temperatures). Given the time of year, it is possible that they were actually eating ticks and bugs from the fur as you can see in this video posted (and incorrectly captioned) by the RSPB. This is still a mutually beneficial relationship, hence the deer’s calm demeanour.
Another breathtaking sight I saw just as I was about to leave. Signs that the rutting season had begun.
The rut is the mating season for deer where stags compete to obtain and defend harems (groups of female deer to mate with). Thanks to my telephoto lens (generously gifted to me by my partner), I was able to stay at a safe distance while capturing this epic moment (being hit by a stag travelling at full speed of up to 30mph would be the suburban equivalent of being run down by a motorbike so I’m keen to avoid such a situation).
Rutting season means all kinds of interesting behaviour beyond butting their heads together. To deter rivals they let out roars driven by an increase in testosterone, a doubling of neck thickness, and a more prominent larynx. Additionally, whether on purpose or not, they have been seen to decorate their antlers in vegetation, supposedly to make themselves appear more threatening (although personally I feel this only adds to their whimsy).
Before I sign off I’d like to bring you back to the poem I started with. All In Green Went My Love Riding. This poem mirrors the myth of Acteon and Artemis and explores the dangers of chasing something as wild as love2. Much like the deer in the poem, love can be beautiful and fleeting. But since the deer also represent a certain elusiveness, this holds some hope. Although you might not see them, they may be hiding in the forest's dark, waiting for the right moment, a safe moment, to show themselves.
I’m sure all of you reading this see the endless value in learning about other cultures, one aspect in particular that I’ve tried to highlight in this article is the joy in learning about the way in which different cultures value animals. In doing so, I find I abandon my surface-level or text-book-level appreciation for the animal. If you do too, maybe the next time you see a deer, you’ll instead see a little bit of magic.
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Come to think of it, seeing a deer disappear into the forest does evoke a kind of urge to follow it (although I may have just seen Prisoner of Azkaban too many times).
According to Ovid's Metamorphoses, Actaeon accidentally saw Artemis (with whom he was enamoured) while she was bathing on Mount Cithaeron. As punishment, she changed him into a stag and he was killed by his hounds.
Wonderful article! I really appreciate the emphasis on how deer and animals, in general, have messages for us if we learn to listen to them and that, across cultures, they serve to bridge us to other states of consciousness. The photography is really outstanding.:)
Excellent, thorough article—and wonderful photos.