Stalking with the deer callerTasso Wolzenburg

It's early in the morning. The Siegerland is waking up. Thick wafts of mist are still drifting through Germany's most densely wooded region, which resembles a mystical lake landscape when viewed from above. A few kilometres further on, the first rays of sunlight fall on the moss-covered, still damp forest floor. An almost magical moment. And the harbinger of a beautiful autumn day in the Siegen-Wittgenstein region in the very south-west of North Rhine-Westphalia. This is where Tasso Wolzenburg lives. For more than 10 years, he looked after the red deer enclosure with the old stag Manni at the Hohenroth forester's lodge in Bad Laasphe/Volkholz and has been a passionate stag caller since his childhood.

But his true love, apart from his family, is the deer that live unobserved in the wilderness above the old forester's lodge. "In September, I belong to them completely," says the 56-year-old. And he means it. During the rut, "when the wedding bells are ringing for the stags", he is often drawn to the Wittgenstein forests at dusk together with interested groups. "I'm always outside otherwise too," he says. "No weather bothers me." Especially as nature has its own charm in every season and the game has its own special features. In winter, he likes to take his guests on a search for tracks in the snow or take them on a night hike in the moonlight. If there are children with him, he always has a mouse whistle with him to lure foxes out of cover.

But autumn is the most beautiful time of year for the all-weather man and naturalist. When the leaves of the trees slowly turn a romantic red-brown colour. And when the tension rises and the stags, quite unromantically, "get to work". Up to 50 hinds - Tasso Wolzenburg respectfully calls them ladies - want to be looked after by a stag each season. "After this act, the stag is a few kilos lighter and totally plump." In the cold season in February, the antlers of the old stags finally fall off their skulls due to hormonal changes. The man from Siegerland doesn't beat about the bush, but tells it like it is.

However, before the trained forester, whose main job is to look after and advise forest owners in the Siegen-Wittgenstein regional forestry office, takes his guests on guided wildlife tours into rough terrain, he usually welcomes them to the visitors' pulpit of the fenced enclosure at the Hohenroth forester's lodge. Here they learn a lot about the impressive love play and display behaviour of the big red deer. And: you are guaranteed to get to see the red deer. Until a few years ago, Manni, as the head of the forestry office christened him and whom Tasso Wolzenburg accompanied for a long time, was the star of the enclosure. "I learnt a lot from him." About the behaviour of the animals. And about their habitat. Today, the forester passes on his knowledge to others. Among other things, the wildlife expert has interesting things to say about the deer's finely developed senses. Odour, for example, plays a much greater role for animals than it does for us humans. Wolzenburg, whose grandfather once instilled in him a love of nature and deer, therefore only ever calls into the wind. "Otherwise the animals would smell me immediately." In other words, they would recognise his game of hide-and-seek. "After all, I'm doing nothing more than making the deer believe something that isn't there to lure them in," says the father of two and finally pulls the green, rather unspectacular hollow plastic tube out of his trouser pocket. "My microphone."