Oh Deer!

Back in October, Paperback Writer went to a local cemetery to take some pictures.   I’ve lived in this city for over 37 years and I’ve never been there, so today Writer and I chose that cemetery for a photo shoot.

We spent a couple hours, looking at the different grave markers, but  for me the most fascinating thing there was a herd of deer.

Now, I’ve seen deer in the city before.  As a teenager, we lived one street away from the edge of the city, right at the foothills of the Wasatch Mountains.  Few winters went by when I wouldn’t find a deer or two or three  munching the leaves of our bushes.  The harder the winter, the more deer I would see.  So seeing the deer wasn’t completely surprising.

What was different was 1. I had my camera with me and was prepared to take pictures, 2. These deer had to travel at least a mile, probably through the University of Utah to get there, 3.  It was a wet summer and an incredibly mild winter so there should be plenty of food in the mountains and most importantly 4. They let me get within 20 feet of them (about 7m).

I’m posting 26 photos here, so I’ll break the post at this point so you don’t spend all week downloading them, unless you want to see them.  Click on “Read more >>” at the bottom to see the rest.

The rest are from the second encounter, when Writer and I spent about an hour slowly moving closer and closer to them.

We’d take one step, quietly, and then just stand there for about 5 minutes, taking pictures while they got used to us being there.  Then another step.

“Clever, ain’t I, hiding behind this big funny looking rock!”

“Mmmmm, tasty flower!”

“Whatcha dooin?”

Kissing Deer

“Eh! What you lookin’ at dere?”

It took a while to get close to them, but well worth it. 

At one point Writer sat down in front of a tombstone to watch a deer that had laid down.  When I asked her what she was doing, se told me “Having a conversation with this deer”.

We always had a dozen or so eyes on us, even when they relaxed a bit and laid down.

Couple of young bucks having a little disagreement.  Probably about whether or not we were there to eat their leaves.

That’s the doe that was having a conversation with Writer.

“Hey, why aren’t you eating some of these yummy leaves?  There’s enough for all of us.”

“No kidding, you’re right.  He’s just standing there, making that funny noise, and not eating anything.  What an idiot.”

One of the young bucks, going to check out what Writer was doing.

**Note to self** – If you’re wearing a vinyl jacket, don’t slide down the tree.   The noise of vinyl against tree bark spooks the deer.

So I stopped leaning against the tree and they all calmed down and went back to watching us.

And watching us.

And watching us.

And watching us some more.

And cleaning themselves.

Overall, an excellent way to spend an afternoon.