Rutting roe deer stags in Teign Gorge, heard from within the wood

The roe deer stags are rutting, uttering their strange and sonorous challenges, against the quiet backdrop of the hum of flies in the wood. Almost all of the stags we hear are not this side of the valley at all, but quite some way away, on lower slope of the hill on the other side of the valley. the occasional ones we hear more distantly are mostly on this (south) side of the valley, but further east (downstream, on our right).

I made this recording on 12 October 2025 during an ascent from Fingle Bridge to Cranbrook Castle (ancient hill fort) — over 1¾ hours from about 10.45 a.m. BST. This time I chose a somewhat lower viewpoint than that of 22 October 2023 (https://freesound.org/people/Philip_Goddard/sounds/706657/ ), in the valley-slope woods, rather than the clearing I used before This made the sounds a little more reverberant, and was enhanced by a continuous faint background sound of the hum of flies, with occasional bits and pieces (probably including the odd straggler acorn) falling from the odd tree, making sudden noises on the dry dead leaves now accumulating.

The recording got reduced to 1h 5' by my editing to remove masses of distant people sounds and of course barking dogs, mainly in the Fingle Bridge vicinity, and of course aeroplanes, though more intrusive were the noisy family groups coming up the nearby Cranbrook Down byway, and, most disruptive of all, two motorcyclists aggressively struggling up the steep and treacherously loose terrain on that track. Distant people voices still exist on this edited version, but aren't readily noticed unless you turn the volume up, and especially if you're listening with headphones. If I'd cut all that out there would have been little left of the recording (it was a Sunday, with lots of walking and family groups concentrating around Fingle Bridge)!

Advisory
Whereas I presented the earlier recording at a slightly amplified level, this is presented at something like the level that I was (at least subjectively) hearing, so it will sound a bit quieter than that one. If you turn up the volume by 3db above a sensible normal level, you'd find it sounds really wonderful, but a lot of those still-extant distant voices would be starting to show-up, especially if you're listening with headphones — so it's your choice.

This recording in progress. A deep steep-sided valley lies between here and the Prestonbury Castle hill beyond, yet the louder rutting calls we hear aren't on this side at all, but on the lower slopes of that hill.

Techie stuff
The recorder was Sony PCM-D100 with mics set to wide angle (120°), with two nested Windcut furry windshields. It was set up on an Aoka mini carbon-fibre tripod.

Post-recording processing was to apply EQ in Audacity to correct for the muffling effect of the windshields.

Please remember to give this recording a rating — Thank you!