Field Notes: All's well that ends well

Photographer Morris Macleod shares a tangled tale about one of his wild neighbours in the Western Isles

I am very lucky to live directly adjacent to wide-open moorland so, during lockdown, I am able to get out for daily exercise without another person in sight.

On 13 February this year, I spotted a stag out on the moor with a length of blue rope entangled in his antlers. I was concerned that the animal could suffer injuries should the rope become snagged as he jumped the fences on large areas of the moor, so reported it to the SSPCA. The local inspector said there was nothing he could do.

Since then I have spotted the animal many times on my daily walk out to the moor and also in the area close to my house. He was always in a group with four other stags and I would make sure they knew of my presence by whistling to them and waving my walking stick.

Last Thursday I went out for my usual early hike, from the back of the house, out over the moor. I spotted the stag in the distance watching me. He had no antlers and was entirely alone which is unusual. I whistled and waved my walking stick at him as I always do and carried on back home.

Several hours later I went out again and, low and behold, the stag was in exactly the same spot. This time I had a close look through the binoculars and recognised him as "Blue Rinse" from the markings on his side.

I walked towards him and he let me get close, then he headed slowly out the moor looking back to see where I was. I followed him for quite some distance and he led me straight to his cast off antlers. 

From the blood stains on the antlers, they were cast off within the past few hours.

I took the antlers home and when I measured the rope it was nine meters long! It's a wonder he survived months of that around his antlers given the amount of fence jumping they do.

The final pictures I took were of him jumping a fence, free at last of the rope!

All's well that ends well.

Photography by Morris Macleod

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