I believe this is my first post to date on a wildlife topic that was not focused on birds. This also helps to fulfill my one of my goals in I set for this blog at the beginning of the year. I was working from home yesterday which allows me to sit out in our kitchen bay window area and observe the wildlife while I parse through hundreds of emails in my inbox. It gives a nice break as I race to bring some reasonable organization to the flood of emails that heads my way each day. Around 4:00pm, I looked out and noticed a herd of deer moving across our woods in the back. By herd I mean over 25 deer. In the middle of this group was this guy.
Yes, I deserve all the criticism for this crappy picture. As soon as I noticed it I went running for the camera which happened to be in another room. It is very very rare to actually see the bucks around here although when we do, they are generally trophy size. We live in a heavily populated deer region and close to a large park where they breed like rabbits. The park is so overrun with them that they opened up a bow and shotgun season inside the park. This translates to a steady stream of hunters every morning and night lining our roads. I get a chuckle every time I see the gun racks and the multitude of hunting stickers on the back windows of the trucks…. whose owner is out shooting fish in a barrel. I don’t have anything personally against hunting (just don’t call it a sport until you arm the deer), but I do not allow hunting on our property so they tend to seek refuge in our yard as the guns start blasting. So, from mid November through mid January, hunters are out looking for the antler racks. By some miracle or cleverness on his part, this particular buck made it through.
Did I mention I was rushing to get the camera “shot” as he moved through the yard, shooting at dusk and through a screen? Trust me, I wish I had taken better shots also. I named him “The Luck [B]uck” but I substituted a different letter.
I did witness an interesting interaction between a few other deer – see details after the jump
Wildlife Intrigued 