Different sizes

Saturday, which seems to have been the last day with arctic temperatures in Copenhagen, I went to the deer park Dyrehaven just north of the city. Here you get the deer in all sizes, from small sikas to large red deer, and in all ages too. This fallow deer fawn seemed to enjoy the winter weather as it crossed the path to get out of my way.

Dyrehaven at Winter

Another place that regular readers have noticed I visit on a regular basis, is Dyrehaven just north of Copenhagen. All seasons here works for me, though it's wise to dress appropriately when trying to get photos like this in January.

Where's my wideangle?

To get the red deer in the frame here with my 70-300mm lens, I actually needed to go backwards, because it was too close to fit otherwise.

Close-up

With the friendly stag almost posing it was difficult not to get some nice close-ups of it, even though the sun was on the wrong side of it. But then a little fill-in flash becomes handy, and the Nikon SB-400 is perfect for that.

Opportunity

I wasn't the only one taking advantage of the friendly deer in Dyrehaven this day. Others also thought it a good time to get a few pics of their kids near the stag.

Too close for comfort

Yesterday's red deer stag came too close for the comfort of these people, as it wandered right over to them. They were sitting right by the hunting lodge, Eremitagen, in Dyrehaven north of Copenhagen, enjoying the beautiful autumn sunshine. As the stag came within a few meters, people decided to move out of its way, because it sure didn't look like it was going to stop at anything. It wasn't in any way aggressive but it just seemed to ignore the 50 people around it in search of the greenest grass. And a lot of the spectators probably got the photos of the week there.

Hide and seek

The deer in Dyrehaven in Klampenborg are very friendly ones and used to people, so there's normally no reason to try to hide when you want to get close to one of them. This boy was trying to sneak up on the stag, but the stag just went its merry way, totally ignoring the people around it. Tomorrow I'll show you just how close he got to the public.

Red Deer

The red deer in Dyrehaven is one of my favourite animals to watch as you can get pretty close without disturbing them.

Shapes

Out in the open in Dyrehaven the red deer where merely shapes in the grey mist.

Having fun in the snow

Even the red deer of Dyrehaven seem to have fun in the snow. This one certainly got a bit lively.

Back to Dyrehaven

I know I've shown you a lot of deer photos before but I do like to take a stroll in Dyrehaven north of Copenhagen. Even in winter it's a perfect place to get some nice photos, as the animals are fed throughout the winter and you can get really close to them. Just remember that the deer have the right of way.

Roaring to the world

The roaring of the red deer stags in Dyrehaven at autumn rivals even the noise of the visiting kindergartens. As with the fighting in yesterdays post you have to keep out of the way because these stags only have eye on their harem and on competing stags. On a couple of occasions I nearly managed to get trampled by some of these animals as the stag tried to keep his ladies in line.

Fighting

At autumn you might get lucky to see the fights between the red deer stags which can be quite spectacular when out walking in Dyrehaven north of Copenhagen. Just don't get in the way because these boys are oblivious to anything other than their opponents (and the ladies of course) when in rut.

In the dark

In Dyrehaven you can get really close to the deer, as I've told you about, but that doesn't help much when they lie in the undergrowth on a sunny day. That wreaks havoc with the light sensor on the camera. Here I've opted for a silhouette effect instead of getting the stag in full colour and getting the background all washed out in the process.

How to cover-up a failure

Normally I show my best photos here, but as everyone who has ever taken a photograph knows, a lot of the photos end up in the trash can. Either they have bad lightning or they're blurred or the colours are way off. The photo of the day of a red deer stag roaring to the world was blurred beyond repair, so I opted for a crop, a conversion to b/w and blurring the surroundings even more. I'm actually kind of pleased with that result, even though I normally prefer to get it right in-camera.

Red Deer

Just north of Copenhagen is a large park called Dyrehaven (literally the Animal Garden) filled with deer; sika, red deer and roe deer. And here you can get really close to the animals as they are used to two-legged spectators. The park was originally for the king only as a hunting reserve close to Copenhagen, but now it's open to the public. The photo here is of one of the red deer stags, the largest of the deer species in Denmark.