The First Antler of the Year
This is the time of year I start looking again.
Not in a structured way. Not with a plan. But with a certain attentiveness that wasn’t there a few weeks ago. The grass hasn't started growing yet and the ground is still open enough to see what lies between last year’s growth.
It’s the season of shed antlers.
I walk the same paths with the dogs, across the edges of fields, along the vineyards and the woodlands nearby. But my eyes move differently now. Slower. I'm scanning shapes rather than movement. A curve where there shouldn’t be one, unusual reflections of light.
After a while, everything starts to look like an antler.
A broken branch. A root pushed up from the soil. A piece of old vine. I find myself stopping more often, changing direction slightly, stepping off the path to check something that almost certainly isn’t what I thought it was.
Most of the time, it isn’t.
But that’s part of it.
The walks take longer this time of year. Not because I am trying to cover more ground, but because I allow myself to drift a little. A few steps to the left, a few to the right. Into places I would normally pass by without noticing. Small dips in the terrain. Edges of hedgerows. Patches of brambles.
I end up finding other things too. Tracks in soft ground. Feathers. Skulls and bones. The first signs of something growing where nothing seemed to be a few days ago.
The antlers are only part of it.
Yesterday, I found the first one of the year.
A 6-point Red Deer shed, from a mature, impressive stag. This is what hunters would call a '12-pointer' if it’s symmetrical. It's fresh. Still some blood on it. It's still carrying that dull, almost chalky color they have when they haven’t been lying out for long. It must have been thrown off mere moments before I found it.
Only one half.
There is always a small moment of hesitation when that becomes clear. You look around a bit longer than usual, widening the circle, hoping the other side lies just a few meters away. It rarely does. I've found a lot of antlers, but only once did I found a full set.
Still, finding one is enough.
I’ve been doing this for years now. Every late winter, without really deciding to, I start looking again. And every year I bring them home.
I don’t have a use for them.
They don’t become tools or decorations. They don’t get cleaned or displayed. They end up in a growing pile in the shed, stacked in a way that suggests I might one day do something with them.
I probably won’t.
Technically, I’m not supposed to take them. In practice, many people do. This time of year, you’re rarely the only one wandering around in the woods, scanning the ground.
Mice and squirrels rely on these sheds. To them, an antler is a rare calcium supplement in a landscape where minerals are hard to find. By picking it up, I’m essentially stealing a vitamins pill from a vole. I know this. And yet, I still reach for it.
But when I see one, I pick it up.
There’s something in the act of finding that makes it difficult not to.
It’s not a hunt. I’m not out here to search every corner or to come back with something each time. Most walks, I find nothing at all. And that's ok. I prefer it to remain accidental. Something that happens while I am already outside, not the reason I go.
Somewhere, the stag that carried it has already moved on, already begun growing the next set. What I’m holding is not loss, just a stage in a cycle I happened to intersect with at the right time.
Back home, the antler joins the others. The pile grows.
And still, when I go out tomorrow, I will look again.
