The days are growing shorter, the nights cooler and you’ve long since polished the previous summer’s velvet off your antlers. You’re feeling primed and ready for the coming breeding season. But you’re torn between the urge to seek out others of your kind and the nagging awareness that you shouldn’t let yourself be seen by the strange upright beasts who turn foul and aggressive this time of year.

Your mate and the rest of the does, whose company you yearn for, don’t have as much to fear as you and the other bucks. At first sight of your proud antlers, the horrible 2-leggers will zero-in and follow you like bloodthirsty mosquitos…

One of them has been on your trail all morning. You hear the cracking of a branch and run for the heavy cover of a spruce thicket, but you see him out of the corner of your eye and are sure he saw you too. Your heart is pumping hard and you’re feeling panicky, but you know you must keep your head or risk making the wrong move. Cautiously proceeding deeper into the forest, you lose track of the pursuer and hope he’s gone away.

All at once you feel the searing pain of something tearing into your side and a loud crack like thunder pierces the silence. You fall to the ground gasping for air. Someone is approaching, but you can’t get up—the pain is all-consuming. He is standing over you now, pressing something sharp against your throat…

Everything is going black as you think back on autumns past and envision your mate and the young ones…and fear for their safety.

Wildlife Photography Copyright Jim Robertson