Capturing Behaviour: Scent

Capturing Behaviour: Scent

Wildlife Photographic Magazine

The fourth instalment of “Capturing Behaviour” investigates the scent marking behaviour of deer to explore the complexities of animal communication.

My article series, “Capturing Behaviour” for Wildlife Photographic Magazine explores the importance of being able to identify and anticipate a variety of common animal behaviour to achieve better and more captivating results with readers’ wildlife photography.

This article series helps readers to understand why wildlife behaviour is important to wildlife photography. My writing is illustrated with my wildlife photographs.

Animal behaviour is not always dramatic, more often than not its subtle and easy to overlook. Yet, understanding these behaviour patterns will give you a richer insight into the lives of wild animals. Furthermore it will enable you to record a more accurate picture of the natural history of your wildlife subjects.

Most wild animals have a sense of smell many times more powerful than our own. Smell is the most important defence system these animal have. They can detect the scent of approaching danger several hundred metres away. For such animals scent also plays a vital role in communication with others of their kind. We cannot understand the language of scent in the same way wild animals do. We have to become keen observers of behaviour to deduce what the animal is trying to communicate.