Closer To The Deer

The deer were standing right at the end of the trail that I was on! Yesterday I showed you a photo of this same trail, but it was too difficult to see these deer in that first one. They were there, but I was too far away for them to be very visible in the picture.

I knew that I wasn't close enough to the deer for a decent photo yet. Also, the trail went right up to the deer, and I wasn't about to turn around and go back. I didn't have anywhere else to go. My only choice was to go forward, so I began to slowly move toward them.

These deer knew I was there, but they didn't seem too concerned with my presence. As I walked towards them, they began to move away, but they weren't in much of a hurry. Last time I saw them, they all ran as fast as they could. Why weren't they running now?

Since they didn't seem that scared of me this time, I decided to get as close as I could. I was taking pictures every few steps as I got closer and closer to where they were. The deer weren't just standing there as I approached. They were slowly easing away from me.

Even with that, they just didn't seem as afraid as they were earlier. It was almost as if they were tolerating me because they didn't want to leave. I've been close to deer before, but not in this type of environment. Every other time it was back behind my house.

As I began to look around a little more, I noticed that they weren't all moving away yet. Any deer that had the protection of the trees were just standing there staring at me. I was getting as many pictures as I wanted, but these deer wouldn't run.

As a matter of fact, not only were they not running, they seemed to be watching me a little too closely. This was getting a little strange. What would you think if you had deer all around you, and they seemed to be examining you?

Honestly, I had all sorts of strange things running through my mind. In the end, I concluded that the deer must have found a good food source here, and didn't want to leave it. They assumed I wasn't a big threat, and they were trying to wait me out.

These aren't exactly normal deer. Most deer would never let me get this close. These are city deer. Don't forget, I've mentioned on this blog before that all of this is happening in the suburbs, not far from Detroit.

These deer don't have too many predators around here. Nobody is allowed to hunt them, because there are too many other people nearby. Sometimes the police have to step in to reduce these herds just to keep them under control.

I was very close to this herd of deer now and they weren't leaving, so I continued to take pictures. I must have gotten over fifty pictures of these deer. Unfortunately, the mode I chose for the camera gave most of them a terrible blur. I still got plenty of good ones though.

After a little while of looking at me, they began to move away again. For some reason their calmer slow walk away turned into a panicked run. Things were going back to normal! I now watched as they ran away again.

It turned out that they didn't run far though. They still wanted to be in this area, but they didn't want me as a new member of their herd. They only ran across a small creek from me. I could still see them further along the same direction I was now going.

I was becoming greedy for more pictures of deer, so I decided to pursue them a little bit longer. This might have been the most foolish thing I have ever done on my nature adventures. As I got close to them again, something else happened that I will talk about tomorrow. Come back then to find out what that was.


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