June 2, 2009 - Deer

After I had seen the first clouds, I got a big surprise. I was shooting pictures, and I happened to look up from my camera screen. I gasped. My initial response was to duck down out of sight. But as I knelt there, I realized that there was no way to get a picture if I didn't stand up at least a little. So I stood up and began snapping photos.

I got tons of pictures, but hardly any were good. The ones I listed, however, were the ones that were decent. This picture is where I first saw them. There are three bucks here, apparently in order of rank. The first one has the biggest antlers, the second one has the second bigest antlers, and the last one has the shortest antlers. That last one was the one who seemed to see me, but aparently wasn't convinced that I was really there.

After a while, without spotting me, they headed down the hill. I followed them as best I could, taking pictures as they went.

They got to the bottom of the hill and came to a little grove of trees where they laid down for while. I snuck up on them and tried getting pictures. But I dropped my walking stick. The deer pictured to the right saw me and gave his deer snort, which isn't like a horses snort, but almost more like a coarse train whistle or something. Very difficult to describe. Anyway, he gave his snort and all the deer ran off, and that was the end of the deer watching.

After the deer had run off, I headed back up the hill to where I had first seen them. There I saw and photographed an awesome sight.