The Red Deer in Autumn Rutting Season

FACING THE HEAT.
Autumn is their breeding season, when the Stags are said to be in rut, and 'Hinds'/females in oestrus/heat.
Rut is the recurring sexual excitement and reproductive activity in the breeding season of certain male ruminants such as the deer, goat, sheep.. that corresponds to the period of 'oestrus' in females ('a regularly occurring period of sexual receptivity in most female mammals, except humans, during which ovulation occurs and copulation can take place; heat')

When autumn colours set in, and the chill starts to build, it is also the time when some animals feel they are 'in heat'. For the deer, it is when they are in autumn 'rut', their breeding season. After an unusually warm start of October, I've been waiting for almost a month, to go and watch them at the ancient hunting ground- The Royals used it since the 12th century, but now reduced to around 10 sq.km of National Nature Reserve between Richmond and Wimbledon. But then also had to wait for a decent sunny weekend to capture their mood.

That means getting really lucky in this part of the world. Finally this Sunday, sun smiled; towards the fag end of the season when stags are most interesting to watch, as they are the most 'interested' too! ;).

But when I reached there early afternoon, trekked half an hour and spotted a herd of around 50 red deer lazing around, chewing the cud, there was nothing to suggest other than just another day in the Deer Calendar ;)

There was no sense of planning for the year ahead, the next generation ;). Two possibilities came to my mind- One, that they are done with the rutting season. Two, they might be very resigned to the fact that

with 7billion of those pesky 2-footed creatures taking over the entire planet, there wasn't much they can do to give it a try and compete!. They couldn't even feel proud that there were at least 1.4 million cattle or 1.1million sheep (or even 18 million chicken, if they want to surpass humans by numbers) —That could join for an “Occupy Streets” protests against unfair treatment meted out by humans, and their downright ugly industrial Animal Farming.

They couldn’t feel proud, because these sheer numbers, they know, are all down to the need or greed of that crazily brainy breed, who has the chutzpah- like a country calling itself ‘Great’- to call themselves wise, Homo ‘Sapiens’..

"Ha, Sapient!, my hoof. Who cares a hoot"- one deer seemed to mull as it chewed the cud.

I kept watching the animated thoughts of the deer folk, while I waited to find out the real truth about their state of mind- whether ‘in rut’ or not; the season over or not.

The lighter side of thoughts, of heavy-thinking deer think tank apart,

I wondered whether, like many mammals, there ever was a time in human history when humans had a breeding season!! ;) - when women would have ovulated/menstruated once, or couple of times and hormones spiked only during such season(s). Sounds funny to think about it, but to have a season to think about dating and mating, and to have no such matters in mind outside it would be unthinkable for many of us humanfolk! ;)

Would the world be happier, grumpier or more solemn in such a scenario ? 

Was very lucky to be there at that time.., the sun just right, mild slanting rays before setting.,
I loved this moment, looking through the lense, lost in that frame-
and I almost lost that right moment and pose to click!:)
Loved the frame.. for those rim-lit antlers with a gleam on it..nicely highlighting..,
its wispy beard almost visible with side-lighting..,
it has that 'steeped-in-its-natural-habitat' feel;
camouflaged, &emerging from the brown ferns.,
With the vestiges of autumn glory, shining back-lit yellow leaves decorating the background of the frame..,
Giving it a sense of time &space- of season &habitat;
of beauty &peace!,
To me, it is a dreamy moment.. I can touch and feel and smell and merge into!..,
To fall back into that frame and be lost in that time and space..,
in that moment when dream came true!

Finally, after 2 hours of waiting,when starting to feel rather unlucky,

I was getting distracted and attracted more to a flock of very raucous parakeets that I had been hearing in the background much of the time. Followed their noisy chatter for a few minutes.

Ring-necked Parakeet.
Most of the Parakeets in the wild in Britain originated in India, were kept as pets and later a wild population grew from the escaped &released birds, with latest estimate around 6000 birds- mostly in the South-East (Even though Greater London and surrounding areas is still its stronghold, the species has been recorded in almost every county in England, and has reached Wales and the Scottish borders.
Interestingly, though frugivorous and vegetarian in its natural habitat in South Asia, in Britain they are omnivorous- at times eating even meat! )
http://www.rspb.org.uk/wildlife/birdguide/name/r/ringneckedparakeet/history.aspx

Slowly I became aware of the changing dynamics of the herd, the tension in the air, the nervous females, the intimidated and side-lined stags, the bullying alpha-male.

Clearly, in that herd there was no challenger who could take on the alpha-male with the most formidable sized antlers that others fad in comparison. So there was not so much of a fight- of the horny males locking horns! ;)

There was more of chasing off other stags and harassing to keep the harem to itself .

Then chasing behind females going in rounds, giving up dodging female after a round of chase..

Sometimes bellowing at the end of it. It was for the first time that I was watching this 'rut' happening live.

When going behind the hinds, the alpha male was often sticking its tongue out as if sensing something in the air,

may be for secretions to see if the female was 'ready', and for some, it would try to touch the tongue as if 'marking' the checked-out females!

While being shutter-happy in the midst, could sense a bit tense ambience at times, especially when the stags were chased off - with rather distinguished expansive antlers, that Alpha-male seemed to hold a harem and keep away some 15+ adult stags from the herd of around 50 ;)

Though after couple of hours of hanging around the herd without intruding their space, they seemed to

take less notice of me than earlier, I remained alert of movements around me. Especially of the Alpha-male.

There was a moment I was stumped, as to which way to go, when a

tall stag with long sleek antlers appreared to come straight at me when being chased off by the

alpha male- 
That's when the warning signs I read elsewhere really struck home: "During the rutting season, it can be dangerous to approach deer".

The red deer(Cervus elaphus) inhabits most of Europe, parts of western Asia, and central Asia. It also inhabits the Atlas Mountains region between Morocco and Tunisia in northwestern Africa, being the only species of deer to inhabit Africa.[wiki]

The Kashmir stag (Cervus elaphus hanglu), also called hangul, is a subspecies [Endangered] of Red Deer native to northern Pakistan and India, especially in Jammu and Kashmir where it is the state animal, and Chamba in northern Himachal Pradesh. Only around 150 of them are left in the wild!!.

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 As an interesting coincidence,  3 days before this deer-outing, attended an event @London School of Economics [ @LSE's Department of Management, a  BBC Radio 4 public conversation ], where  economist Robert Frank, talked about his new book The Darwin Economy: Liberty, Competition, and the Common Good  (He is Cornell University professor of economics and management, Author of  'The Economic Naturalist', and a text book 'Principles of Economics' co-authored with Fed Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke. The other books include Winner-Take-All Society, Luxury Fever, What Price the Moral High Ground?. He is also New York Times economics columnist. His books have been translated into 22 languages). It was a BBC Radio4 interview & public conversation hosted by LSE Dept of Management, conducted by BBC economics editor Paul Mason.. There was an audience of around 800 @LSE.

In the opening stages of the conversation, Paul Mason asked an interesting question: "It is rare to read an economics book and come away with such a startling image, as one comes away with from the beginning of your book, of an elk (the large deer, called moose in the US) with giant antlers. Explain to us, what you mean by that metaphor/analogy", and Frank goes on to talk about antlers in elk  : About balancing evolutionary advantage and disadvantage of having bigger and bigger antlers as the species evolved. The advantage of bigger antlers, is the reproductive advantage of getting to mate with as many females as it can get, by fighting off those with smaller antlers; disadvantage of it being the bigger risk of getting easily hunted down by wolves. The antlers grew bigger and reached an equilibrium [This equilibrium may not be good for 'the elk males as a group': Having to carry antlers weighing upto 40pounds]. The point being, individual gains/interests does not coincide with group interest in this case.

I've added more about this event at this other blog post-

http://greenwich-times.blogspot.com/2011/11/darwin-economy-liberty-competition-and.html

It has some excerpted text of the talk, edited audio podcast to fit into 30min slot of BBC Radio4, and the full 1 hr video from LSE. It also has links to videos of his talks at other places, including that uploaded by Princeton University Press, in which he reveals what propelled him to write this book: Fed-up and frustrated by hearing all the rhetoric of the libertarian American right wing, he sat and started typing his response, whic over a period of time evolved into this book!

Here is sneak peak-  a 7min video highlight, of Rober Frank talking about the themes in the book at some other place.



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The Darwin Economy: Liberty, Competition, and the Common Good

 It was an interesting coincidence, that 3 days before my deer-photo-outing, attended an event @LSE, (part of  'LSE IDEAS series- Ideas that can change the world!')  where economist Robert Frank, talked about his new book The Darwin Economy: Liberty, Competition, and the Common Good  (He is Cornell University professor of economics and management, Author of  'The Economic Naturalist', and a text book 'Principles of Economics' co-authored with Fed Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke. His text books are followed at LSE as well. The other books include Winner-Take-All Society, Luxury Fever, What Price the Moral High Ground?. He is also New York Times economics columnist. His books have been translated into 22 languages). It was a BBC Radio4 interview & public conversation hosted by LSE Dept of Management, conducted by BBC economics editor Paul Mason.. There was full audience of around 800 @LSE.

I attended the event as I quite liked his other book,  'The Economic Naturalist' (2008), a different approach to economics; His radical/refreshing approach to teaching economics to his students, starting from simple questions of the everyday things that can be linked to economic justification, as mentioned in that book. I was more drawn to his linking of 2 topics-- finding simple analogies in nature, for economic theories!. Also, felt he has a certain humbleness about him, and as The Guardian noted in its review of his book 'The Winner-Take-All Society', "he has lucid writing style and a willingness NOT TO TAKE HIMSELF TOO SERIOUSLY"
The media intro's to this new book The Darwin Economy said, it looks more extensively  into Economics and Natural History!- 2 subjects that fascinate me, as they surround us in our daily lives, with so many mysteries to unravel! ;), esp in Natural History.

The new book also tells about the parallels in economics and evolution- about competition and consequences of risk-taking behaviour, which are so central to econimics today. The book sets out to answer a strange-sounding question: ‘Who was the greater economist--Adam Smith or Charles Darwin?!’ Frank predicts that within the next century Darwin will unseat Smith as the intellectual founder of economics. The reason, Frank argues, is that Darwin's understanding of competition describes economic reality far more accurately than Smith's. 
It is said, 'To be an economist without having read The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, is like being a priest without having read the Bible.'

The talk starts by asking Frank, "We've built 200years of economic theories based on the achievements of Adam Smith. What did we do 'wrong' ?".
He replies: "I am not against Adam Smith--rather, a huge admirer of Smith myself, but against the Modern caricature of Adam Smith as put forward by the free market enthusiasts, esp in the US, and American Right wing, who are Smith's biggest disciples.. They have a wrong notion of what Adam Smith wrote (in The Wealth of Nations)".. Frank says about the de facto bible of economics and the libertarians who interpret it wrongly;  Their notion, for instance, like that of a typical invesment banker, is  that in pursuing self-interest, they are pursuing the good of all.. and in free markets, whatever survives and prospers is to be morally celebrated.. while also wanting competition without regulation. This, Frank argues, is NOT for the common good.

 Darwin has more general view of the competitive process-  he says, Darwin's GREAT INSIGHT was that sometimes individual gains/interests coincide with group interest, but OFTEN they DON'T-- Whenever there is such a conflict, it's often the individual interest that triumph, often to the great cost to the group.
Much of the competition in the business world, is against its own kind.

But according to Darwin, whatever survives in Nature is not always of the kind to be 'morally celebrated'.
 Competitive imperatives led animals to do things that were brutal in terms of the well-being of other members of the group- like killing the offsprings of other dominant males, as in lions.
Sometimes, what benefits the individual, puts so much more risks on the the group-- nowhere more than the Financial insdustry! (And that eventually led to economic catastrophy, global recession)

In the opening stages of the conversation, he is also asked an interesting question: "It is rare to read an economics book and come away with such a startling image, as one comes away with from the beginning of your book, of an elk (the large deer, called moose in the US) with giant antlers. Explain to us, what you mean by that metaphor/analogy", and Frank goes on to talk about antlers in elk  : About balancing evolutionary advantage and disadvantage of having bigger and bigger antlers as the species evolved. The advantage of bigger antlers, is the reproductive advantage of getting to mate with as many females as it can get, by fighting off those with smaller antlers; disadvantage of it being the bigger risk of getting easily hunted down by wolves. The antlers grew bigger and reached an equilibrium [This equilibrium may not be good for 'the elk males as a group': Having to carry antlers weighing upto 40pounds]. The point being, individual gains/interests does not coincide with group interest in this case.

Another interesting point he raises towards the end, is that Modern Economics so much ignores "context" in the models, and focuses too much on mathematics.

[The Audio podcast of the event is available here on BBC Radio 4: Edited version, fitted into 30min for the radio. http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0174f06/Analysis_The_Darwin_Economy/  ]

The full event video @LSE, ~1hr:






More about the book here:  http://press.princeton.edu/titles/9509.html

Here is also a 7min video highlight, of Rober Frank talking about the themes in the book



Other full length video of talks available..
from Princeton University Press: [ At the start of this talk, he also tells what propelled him to write this book- Fed-up and frustrated by hearing all the rhetoric of the libertarian American right wing, he sat and started typing his response, whic over a period of time evolved into this book! ]
http://www.youtube.com/embed/HJUoHkGYsOA

and talk at New America Foundation:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6dpdITsPOg
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The Story of English -BBC series and The Book

Had bought this fascinating book The Story of English (from BBC Books, which you might have known/read) while I was working in Bangalore.. 10yrs ago.. It is a companion-book for the 1986 BBC series in 9-parts as per the chapters of the book..about the history of the language.

(I got the the revised 2nd edition of 1992, But still some statistics, like in the attached English in India section, might be a bit rusty..

It also says in that section further down, that "It's not pure English, but it's like the English of Shakespeare, Joyce and Kipling- gloriously impure.' ;)

Found the full series (almost 500min) online!

http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/story-of-english/

The Story of English is the title of an Emmy Award winning nine-part television series, and a companion book, both produced in 1986, detailing the development of the English language. A little bit old but very good.

The book and the television series were written by Robert MacNeil, Robert McCrum and William Cran. The book has been revised twice, once in 1993, and again in 2002.

The Story of English: English in India (Some stats slightly old- from 1986, still, quite interesting ones)

The Story of English: By Indians For Indians

ARGUMENTS WITH GANDHI: talk @LSE by Dr Ramachandra Guha

"ARGUMENTS WITH GANDHI": Audio podcast of eminent historian Dr Ramachandra Guha's talk @  The London School Of Economics
last week, 26/Oct. Laced with wit and interesting anecdotes.. 



More about the event:
http://www2.lse.ac.uk/newsAndMedia/videoAndAudio/channels/publicLecturesAndEvents/player.aspx?id=1212

"At once a freedom fighter, social reformer and environmental thinker, Mahatma Gandhi's ideas were original and controversial. Though much criticised, Gandhi's life and work continue to illuminate the major social and political debates of our time."

Guha's recent books include:
India after Gandhi: The history of the world's largest democracy (2007), 
Makers of Modern India (2010)

RamGuha is also an environmental historian.
I've bought one of his books 'Ecology and Equity' (co-written with the Ecologist Madhav Gadgil from IISc)  while in B'lore 10years ago.