I have been around roe deer for several years now but this year I have managed to gather more insight into their springtime behaviour and vocalization range.
This morning I was fortunate to hear five neighbouring males barking each on their own range at the same time.
I believe it is an important observation because this behaviour was something quite new (for me).
Typically, I have heard a singular male patrolling or two neighbouring males interacting with one of them being on the other neighbour’s range or very very close to it (possibly in a disputed area).
This morning the behaviour was not of conflictual nature.
Each of the males was on their own range and intrusion had never occurred in the first place.
The assembly might have been triggered by a male who lives on the side of the river with the private garden allotments (he was the only one on that side of the river – the rest of them were from the opposite side although I cannot be certain that their ranges are delineated by the river because the river, during summer, is very shallow and easily crossed; at the moment, however, it is still moderately deep and the water is cold which has perhaps turned it into a bordering feature).
First I heard this male relatively far from the river (although he could definitely be heard across the river) as he was patrolling, as usual.
The male travelled across his range approaching the riparian forest where he was proceeding through the undergrowth.
This male had a very deep, resonant vocal.
Suddenly, from the other side of the river, the neighbouring male (whom I had heard on his bank formerly during this month and who also has a very deep, resonant vocal) began responding to the first barking male.
Their voices truly sounded impressive because this was a cold, misty morning – both properties enhancing volume and speed, respectively.
Neither of the males ever crossed the river and the duet was not the result of a need for direct confrontation.
There was not an intent to cross the river as far as I could tell.
The males paced each on their side of the river, almost parallel, and I suppose that the male on the opposite side (the one who joined in) perhaps was even adjusting his pace to that of his neighbour’s because his neighbour was venturing through a thicket which must have impeded movement (compared to the disturbed, open habitat on the other side of the river).
They were barking at one another or together (depending on the interpretation of this communicative context) and they were pacing to and fro but neither one of them tried to cross the river.
At some point they also slightly retreated from the river as if to resume their regular patrolling but then moved back closer to the bank to resume the conversation.
As they were barking, after perhaps 1 – 2 minutes, another male joined in.
This male had a sharper, higher-pitched vocal but he was, too, barking as usual. I have come to assume that there are two types of male vocals – the resonant, deep one and the higher-pitched, sharper one which could be the consequence of age or perhaps of experience at being a resident male, or perhaps simply to physiology (some males having different vocal apparatus than other males).
I have heard him before – he is a neighbour to the male on the other side of the river (the disturbed, half-open habitat).
However, I am not certain if their ranges truly border one another.
I have mostly heard this male a bit further downstream where he patrols his range on a rather open landscape with two households and some fields and abandoned riparian grasslands.
This male was not the same (supposedly territorial) male I had heard during a conflict I have described before (Roe deer observation (Apr 3, 2024) – territorial conflict) and I suspect that the ranges of these two males on the other side of the river come very close to one another (by 10 – 20 metres).
This male had apparently overheard the other two males vocalizing.
Perhaps it is due to lack of experience but I had never heard males responding to such vocalizations by joining in.
I had only heard males barking in a solitary capacity on their range (and not eliciting any response from other males on their ranges) or, as I mentioned before, males have barked at one another interactively upon circumstances of slight trespassing.
This third male now joined in and he left the central part of his range which he is typically patrolling (he is also different from other males because he tends to patrol these open habitats rather than more sheltered, close canopy, dense vegetation habitats that I hear other males patrolling more regularly/intensely than the open parts of their range).
The male approached maybe as close as he could to the other two males while still remaining on his own range, and he barked from there.
To this trio, two other males responded.
One of them was a male whose range probably bordered with that of the third male.
It was about 500 metres downstream and quite far away; it was also across the river but because the river makes a very spatious bend there forming what I sometimes call ‘a peninsula’, the male was across the river from all other males.
I think it is important to note here that, for example, this male was in no way affected by anything that could have been happening in the vicinity of the rest of the barking males because his range was extremely far and he had also travelled to the extreme margin of his range to listen in and to join in the barking.
Namely, if there had been a suggestion of trouble, it could not concern him at all.
In fact, if anything, he was neglecting his territorial duties because he had journeyed to one part of his range to bark with the other males while the rest of his range was left entirely unattended.
The fifth male who joined in (and who was a neighbour to the second male on the most inland range about 600 metres from the centre of the action), could have been curious because the activity was close to his territory just like the third male’s territory might have been impacted if the barking was proven indicative of, for example, a sixth individual who had been trespassing on the first male’s range and who was now seeking his quiet escape through the other males’ ranges.
I never heard any such noise of an ‘invader’ trying to get away and the pacing by the first two males was not characteristic of active search, nor chase, either.
The two further individuals ceased barking soon enough (perhaps after few minutes of chorus barking in response to one another but mainly in response to the first two males).
The third individual persisted for about as long as the first individual.
In fact, the first individual who had initiated this collective barking bout, dropped the act long before the second individual.
The second male persisted the longest and sometimes the third and the first individuals still responded to him after some silent pauses.
Maybe it is important to state that the three individuals who joined the first two, all had higher-pitched vocals.
The second individual who did not start the barking concert but who kept it going the longest, had the most impressive vocals and apparently the greatest endurance.
I find it difficult to accept that age would affect vocal apparatus greatly in roe deer males because roe deer are altogether not very large and do not keep growing after they have reached maturity.
However, the hormonal production rate could increase with age and/or with experience (and so could the basic ‘singing skills’ because it must not be an easy task for an unaccustomed voice to conduct these performances).
I think that the first two individuals triggered the chorus barking by the five territorial males perhaps because they were more experienced and their voices had some type of psychological and/or hormonal impact on the other males.
It was somewhat amusing that these five males together engaged in what was very similar to the pre-dawn/dawn singing bouts performed by males of bird species who each sing on their territory.
In fact, once these males had ceased barking (including the second individual), almost immediately, the first riparian birds started singing (it was around 4.30 – 5 am).
There is something that I yet find hard to define but that causes me to drawn comparisons between roe deer and songbirds, more specifically, the riparian forest roe deer and the riparian forest songbirds.
It is a quality to their voice which, at times, has a pitch/tonality reminiscent of birds singing.
It is this behaviour of ‘singing through their ranges’.
It is also the behaviour which I have concluded exists (but which scientists have not proposed in their work) of protecting the nest sites by the females and protecting the females.
It is also the habit of splitting up in pairs during the reproductive (offspring-rearing) season and then flocking up during winter.
Perhaps there is something about riparian habitat and forest habitat environment that promotes lifestyle similarities in seemingly highly and anciently diverged taxa (birds and deer).
Here it is worth mentioning that both taxa have probably emerged as tropical forest species.
On the other hand, who are we to immediately dismiss the possibility that species can learn from one another even if they are not closely related but when they live very near and some of their behaviours are similar albeit in separate niches due to size differences.
Be as it may, the birds began singing right after the roe deer males had ceased singing.
However, it is possible that the roe deer males simply awakened the birds because their barking was very loud and I suppose that the concert by the roe deer males was a phenomenon solicited and supported by the weather of tonight which provided them with the necessary environmental acoustic properties.
I wonder what this behaviour meant and whether it is more typical than I would assume based on my limited experience.
The fact that the third male who was closer to the epicenter of the activity also engaged longer than the fourth and fifth males who were farther might suggest that the first two males could have created a false impression of there being some actual trouble.
If the rest of the males believed that something was happening, logically, those closest to the location would be most invested in the matter.
On the other hand, the fourth male could hardly be affected by anything that was happening over there.
And the third male had the opportunity to approach quite closely and to investigate the situation from nearby but after he had done that, he did not cease barking.
Instead, the fifth male who might have suffered potential trespassing etc. and who apparently could not approach near enough to make any assessments, ceased barking far sooner than the third male.
Also, for the second male it would have been clear at once whether there was a problem to be dealt with or whether the first male had been patrolling, as usual, with no direr cause to it.
They were metres apart from one another (separated by the river and not much more) and the second male would have been able to verify facts in moments.
I do not think that the second male was threatened by the first male, either, despite them having been so close because the river, currently, is not crossed that easily and the first male did not show intent to cross it.
Also, all these vocalizations were similar – they were typical patrolling vocalizations and none of them were more defensive or aggressive than others.
They did not solicit defensive, nor aggressive responses, either.
None of the males fled (all of them approached the point on their range which was the nearest to the centre of the activity) and none of them sought to trespass or otherwise initiate a confrontation.
In all honesty, it seemed they were enjoying this communion but the ability to partake was affected by the proximity (which suggests of some type of influence that could be chemical, olfactory nature) as well as by the male’s vocal potential.
My explanation is as follows.
All of these males must be familiar with one another not only as neighbours but also as winter associates because they belong in the same subpopulation (which resides on perhaps 5 km2 of land) and they must have met during winter search for forage and during winter travel which is mainly limited to the riparian forest bands.
The two males who started the collective barking must have been both foraging and travelling together during winter.
This has been a very strange year – the spring set in exceptionally early and I think that the roe deer were a bit confounded by the sudden need to disrupt their winter social behaviour and to replace it with the springtime isolated lifestyle (in males).
It is even possible that hormonal shifts occur because social vs. territorial behaviour toward the same individuals cannot be achieved that easily.
Cooperative or at least tolerant behaviour is based on hormonal production that is different from antagonistic, avoidance behaviour hormonal pattern.
I wonder if this year the two hormonal pathways have not separated as quickly as usual and perhaps the roe deer are confused because they still feel social toward one another (the hormonal shift has not occurred completely) while they also have assumed avoidance/defense behaviour.
It might of significance that the last week has been considerably colder (reverting to late winter temperature conditions).
The two males who met each on their side of the river could have experienced what we call ‘mixed feelings’ – the necessity to keep to their range and to keep their range while remembering the winter associations perhaps feeling drawn to prolong these experiences of belonging in a larger social group.
Thus, when the second male responded to the other, the response itself might have been based on the springtime behaviour (territorial barking) but it might have been accompanied both by social and defensive hormonal production (I should mention that, in this case, I consider testosterone also a defensive, not offensive hormone).
The males might have been curious about this novel experience whereby they are barking at one another but this behaviour holds a social context to it which is affiliative.
They might have indulged in the barking sequence simply to understand what was happening and what it all meant.
Typically, when one male is patrolling, other males nearby do not appear to respond.
As I mentioned before, even though all these males have other neighbouring residents, whenever they patrol (unless there has been a trespass), they do so alone.
On few occasions I have observed another male approaching the patrolling male’s range but they have not explicitly intruded, nor they have barked in a confrontational or cooperative manner.
I wonder if the second male, upon hearing the first male’s barking during the first male’s patrolling duty, was confounded by his contradictory physiological and psychological responses.
As the first male, in fact, had the most impressive vocal (and could have been the most experienced and dominant of them all), the second male, for a moment, might have regressed to the only social experience of another male barking but not provoking defensive reactions – which is that of having heard his father while he was just a fawn.
Maybe the second male responded but because he has his own territory and it is spring, he responded in a territorial manner.
However, the vocalization and its intonation (as well as accompanying hormonal reactions and their scent) could have been a blend of affiliative and defensive intent.
Rather than staying quiet (as is perhaps more customary), the second male might have felt that his response was elicited by the wintertime hormonal remnants rather than by a will to defend his range.
As a result, the first male might have also responded and encountered the same mixed attitudes, especially, if these males know one another.
They might have paced and barked in order to figure out their own hormonal and behavioural state.
The third male might have been drawn either by a worry that there was an intruder who was being chased by the first two males, or by the incomprehensibility of the vocalization itself (on occasion I have heard two males barking at one another in a territorial conflict context, the barks of the two opponents have not been similar – one of them produced shorter, sharper barks while the other invested in the intensity of the patrolling bark; in this situation, they were both using the same vocalization which is perhaps strange for other roe deer but perhaps it is not – experience will tell).
Once he approached, the third male might have been drawn in both by the vocalizations and by other cues such as scent signals.
The fourth and the fifth males could been similarly misled and/or bewildered but they were not close enough to become affected by any olfactory cues and they might not have been thereby capable of persisting in this collective performance.
It seemed to me that all these males were rather forming a type of barking fellowship rather than pitting their barking skills against one another because their barking was not executed in a manner to overpower the rest.
It also appeared to me that barking together was more difficult for the males than conducting their solo barking sessions.
They stopped barking much sooner than they would have on their usual patrol.
There could have been a greater metabolic investment (if, indeed, two types of hormones were produced provoking whole new reactions in their organism).
Cognitive and psychological processing could also have taken a toll – not merely to understand the situation but also to adapt to the other male’s vocalization pattern (much like in choir singing where everyone has to adjust to everybody else).
It appeared that the males withdrew because they were perhaps tired and the first ones to withdraw were those whose investment was not augmented by hormonal responses to scent cues.
Then the third male withdrew whose voice was perhaps not as established (that is if higher-pitched vocal indicates at younger/less experienced male vs. a different morphotype which has nothing to do with vocal and hormonal potential).
The second male had become the leading vocal in this concert and he was the last to cease.
It is interesting how he had assumed leadership despite perhaps having had responded ‘as a fawn’ at first (although, certainly, there is a possibility that he initially responded because he was offended by the first male barking so near his own range).
I cannot say that his vocal was the strongest but he seemed the one who was most motivated perhaps because suddenly everyone relied on him (and if the winter sociality has not been erased from the metabolism, he might have felt responsible over this gathering).
I wonder if such collective barking sessions are common at all.
Whether they are common or not, I immensely enjoyed the pre-dawn roe deer choir which was then replaced by the songbird choir.
Notes by Ieva 