Species guidesCervus elaphus
Red deer photography in Switzerland
For about four weeks each autumn, red deer stags stop hiding. They gather hinds, roar across the valleys and face down rivals, and they do it in the open at dawn and dusk. It is the biggest wildlife spectacle in the Swiss mountains.
- Species
- Red deer Cervus elaphus
- Best season
- Mid-September to mid-October
- Habitat
- Mountain forest edge and high pasture
- Lens
- 500mm or longer
It is also demanding to photograph. The animals are usually far away, the best action happens in very little light, and the season is short.
The animal
The red deer is the largest wild land mammal in Switzerland. A mature stag carries a new set of antlers each year, grown through the summer and cleaned of velvet just before the rut.
During the rut a stag barely eats. He spends his days holding a group of hinds together and seeing off challengers, first by roaring, then by walking alongside a rival to compare size, and only then by fighting.
When and where
The rut runs from roughly mid-September to mid-October, with the most intense roaring in the last week of September and the first week of October. Cold, clear mornings are the most active.
Red deer are widespread in Graubünden, Valais and Ticino and along the northern edge of the Alps. The Swiss National Park in the Engadine is the best-known place to watch the rut, because the animals there are not hunted and stay out in the open.
Outside protected areas the rut overlaps with the hunting season, and deer are far more wary.
How to photograph them
Bring the longest lens you have. Distances of several hundred metres are normal, and 500mm or 600mm is the working range. A solid tripod matters here more than on any other shoot.
Expect to shoot at high ISO. The first roars come before sunrise, and a sharp frame at ISO 6400 is worth more than a clean, blurred one. Aim for 1/500 s for a roaring stag and faster for a chase.
On a cold morning, look for backlight. Breath hanging in the air in front of a roaring stag is the picture everyone wants.
Without disturbing them
Stags burn through their reserves during the rut and go into winter in poor condition. We stay on marked paths, keep our distance, and never imitate a roar or use recorded calls to draw an animal in.
In the National Park, leaving the paths is forbidden. Those rules are the reason the deer are visible at all.
Photograph red deer with a guide
Tell us when you would like to come and who is coming. We reply with what is realistic for those dates, a draft plan and exact pricing.
