Oh deer! New hair style blinds young stag during mating ritual


The hilarious photograph captures the moment the foliage clumped to the stag's antlers falls into his eyes.


Blinded, the stag looks perplexed as he peers around the autumn field for a potential mate.


Mating season has started for deers in the UK meaning males must prove to their potential partners that they are the strongest of the group.


Fights between stags are very common as males viciously lock antlers to show-off to females - sometimes battling to the DEATH.


In an attempt to control their frustrations, stags will drag their antlers in the foliage on the ground.


This can leave the proud animals with hysterical crowns of leaves, twigs, and bracken - modelled by the young stag snapped by Luke Millward in this brilliant series of photos.


Mr Millward, 37, arrived at Richmond Park, in South West London - home to over a thousand deer - at 7am so that he could spend the next ten hours picturing the deers.


He said: 'This stag popped his head out of the ferns with his antlers covered in bracken. His eyes are covered with foliage.


'When they get frustrated they scrape their antlers on the ground and foliage stays on. It's called a 'bracken crown'.'


'I thought it was a funny angle on the red deer breeding season'.


Mr Millward, from Saffron Walden, in Essex, works as a physiotherapist during the week but says that the deer breeding season is one of his highlights of the year.


He explained that the stags - which can weigh over 31stone and measure up to 8ft long - are very busy and 'don't really have much time to sleep or eat as they are constantly fighting for the females'.


He added: 'It's really spectacular to see.


'The males hang around in groups and test the strength of each other.


'They don't really have much time to sleep or eat as they are constantly fighting for the females. What they do is they rut each other, which means they lock horns and battle, trying to be the strongest.


'The females will mate with the strongest stags. It's really serious and they can even kill each other occasionally.


'If one pulls away whilst they are rutting they can get stabbed. It doesn't happen very often but it does happen'


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