Water Deer Behaviour - Play

When used as a verb, play, which seems to have its etymological roots in the Germanic plegōjanan meaning 'to occupy oneself', is an umbrella term incorporating a range of behavioural patterns that's not straightforward to define. The 2006 Oxford Dictionary of Animal Behaviour describes play as:

“An aspect of juvenile behaviour, in which the (usually) young animal spends time in apparently pointless activity, such as friendly fighting, sex without coition, hunting without prey, etc. ... It is a type of leisure activity, in that it disappears from an animal's repertoire when demands upon the animal's time are very severe.”

However we define it, there are broadly three types: play directed at another individual (social play), play that involves manipulation of an item (object play) and running/jumping/diving/sliding in solitude (locomotor play). Of course, these broad categories are not mutually exclusive - object play can be both social and locomotor, for example, and the same jumping/running/twisting can be found while playing in solitude or with others. We don't fully understand why other species play, but the general suspicion is that it helps to hone skills used in later life and/or help generate social bonds within a group that may be important in future. This perhaps explains why it is commonplace among a huge variety of animal species during infancy. Play by adults may simply be a vestige of childhood, but several recent studies have pointed to higher emotional intelligence among adult humans that take time to play.

While several authors mention play among deer in passing, there remains a paucity of data on it in water deer. In his 1977 book Deer, Raymond Chaplin noted that play by the water deer fawns raised in his garden involved many elements (but not complete sequences) of adult behaviour patterns and would involve one of both fawns, along with the mother or father, either as active participants in an ever-changing game of chase, or as objects about which to play. The only formal description of which I'm familiar, however, is that made by Stefan Stadler during his Ph.D. studies at Whipsnade in the latter half of the 1980s. Play behaviour was observed in both sexes and all age categories, although fawns between three and eight weeks old were the most playful. At less than six weeks old, fawns were often seen playing with siblings, and in Muntjac and Water Deer Arnold Cooke notes that water deer fawns “are fortunate in that they have siblings or others of the same age with which to play”, while solitary play was more likely beyond this age.

In most cases Stadler couldn't determine the trigger for the play session, although there were some bouts apparently triggered by specific events, such as the approach of an unfamiliar vehicle or changes to the environment. An environmental change that Stadler noted as triggering play was snowfall, and in his monograph on the social behaviour of the related roe deer (Capreolus capreolus), published in 1968, German zoologist Fred Kurt described a similar behaviour he termed “schneetollheit”, or snow madness. In total, five different play behaviours were recorded during the study.

The first behaviour, play-running, was characterised by a rapid gallop over 20 to 150 metres (66-500 ft.), a brief pause and then several similar gallops. The second, caprioles, involved jumping into the air and turning to one side. Sometimes jumps would involve leaping with all four feet simultaneously, rather than the more typical jumping into the air with the forelegs first. Headshaking, the third, was often associated with the first two behaviours, although sometimes animals shook their head to-and-fro unaccompanied by other movements. The fourth behaviour, play-mounting, typically involved males mounting other males, while the fifth, tanz (the German word for dance), was like the aggressive combat observed in rutting males, but despite the look of serious intention no canine blows or vocalisations were observed.

Arnold Cooke and Lynne Farrell report having observed two of the five behaviours documented by Stadler in older water deer on the Cambridgeshire fens, headshaking and caprioles, and I have observed all except play-mounting. In December 2022, I watched what appeared to be a first-winter doe capriole and play-run at a reserve in Norfolk as dusk fell, and I have seen headshaking, jumping and dashing behaviour in very young fawns at Woburn while accompanying their mother. I have also seen footage of fawns engaged in tanz, both shot by Raymond Chaplin in his garden and caught on a trailcam on a Suffolk Wildlife Trust reserve during August 2020, and I have observed similar behaviour between larger animals in Bedfordshire during the spring and autumn. Additionally, in mid-July 2020, I watched a doe with two well-grown fawns in tow in farmland just outside Woburn. The fawns interchanged between bouts of grazing and playing, both with one another and performing caprioles on their own. At no point did we observe the dam to join in, or be solicited for play by the fawns.

Finally, there are a couple of reports of object/other species play in the literature. The first is recounted by Kenneth Whitehead in his short article to Country Life in 1953 in which he describes the raising and early life of a water deer fawn found abandoned at Woburn Abbey and hand reared by Mr T. A. Hayward. Whitehead described how the doe, named “Dawn” by Hayward, could run at a considerable speed at only a week old and “loved to romp on the lawn with her owner, or play with the Angora rabbit”. Of particular interest, however, was the play with Hayward's Siamese cat with which the deer apparently enjoyed interacting even when nearly a year old:

“When the deer was less than a month old the kitten would stalk her from behind and, rushing in, leap on her back. Dawn would then shake him off and, with a show of fury, trample him under her little hoofs. Sometimes, while they were scampering together, the deer would bring down both forelegs on the kitten, and she always repels a frontal 'attack' with a kick from one of her forelegs. Fortunately, at 11 months old, she still retains this desire to play and does not mind at all when the cat takes a long leap on to her back.”

The second is more recent and comes from the Norfolk Bird and Mammal Report for 1997, in which there's an interesting note from the county mammal recorder on reports received of water deer:

“Several records of strange behaviour recorded including one behaving like a mad march hare in Feb 1996, one chasing pheasants and one chasing a fox into some trees. The fox then reappeared and chased the deer.”

I am very interested to hear from readers who have observed play in water deer, particularly those with confirmed observations of play between adult bucks and/or water deer and other species.