Growing Up Whitetail Part III: Little Sister

In this group photo the deer have been joined by the young bucks little sister.  She’s the doe at the back or second head from the left.  She’s a much more nervous deer than her brother but has allowed me to photograph her.

I have photos of her when she was about two to three months old posted somewhere on this blog.  You’ll see her in the picture below, one of the earliest good shots I have of her.

With her father nearby, she allowed me to take this picture.  Deer rely on their senses to determine a threat.  She’s all ears, and they rely heavily on their ability to hear something or someone sneaking up on them.

While her mom watched nervously she walked right up to within twenty feet of me.  I thought it unusual at the time, until I realized that, nearby, her dad had been watching. 

With her brother standing between her and I she circled back into the woods and eventually disappeared.  At about one year of age in this shot, she hasn’t gotten much closer than this since, probably because it wasn’t too much longer after this that these deer became targets for some rock-throwing-city-brats staying in the park.

From early this winter, she’s the first deer on the right.  While she’s gotten some size to her, you can see she’s still smaller than the other mature does.

Growing Up Whitetail Part II

Last spring I took this shot of a young buck in velvet.

He might have weighed about a hundred and twenty pounds then.  A scrawny looking buck, but good-sized considering he wasn’t even a year old at the time.  During late spring and early summer the bucks tend to band together, while the does have their fawns and begin nursing.

Often curious and much braver than he should be, I began calling him Braveheart on this day, because he had deliberately placed himself between me and his sister to protect her.  He might have weighed a hundred pounds at the time. 

Here’s another shot from very early spring last year.  The bucks will be displaced, first by their mothers in late spring and then by their fathers in late summer.  I hadn’t seen this buck since the photo of him in velvet above and didn’t think I ever would, because after his father displaces him he would more than likely have to leave the park.  During my hike through the park last Monday I began seeing tracks for a buck.  A small buck – probably one less than two years old, I thought.

His mom is a big doe.  A whitetail doe can weigh as much as two hundred pounds.  She’s the second deer from the right and to my surprise he’s the second deer from the left.  He’s almost as big as his mom now.  Whitetails band together during winter for protection and to compete for dwindling food sources.  Except for hunting season, this is the hardest time of the year for them to survive.

Growing Up White-tail

At 3209 acres Lake Kegonsa State Park is big enough to have decent hiking and skiing but small enough for me to be able to identify individual deer.  For those of you not familiar with my history and new to this blog, I am not a professional photographer, I’m a hiker with a camera.  I have a friend who loves deer photos, so every week I spend one day hiking with the sole intention of taking deer pictures.  I have learned a lot about white-tailed deer and how to take photos of them in the past twenty or so months, which has added to my enjoyment of hiking.

One of the things I have learned about whitetails is a female whitetail will spend her entire life within one mile of where she is born, which makes identifying them easier. 

One of the first whitetail photos I took.

I took that photo very early in the morning during the summer.  Early in the morning whitetail mothers move their young.  They find a safe place to leave them so they can go feed.  The doe above was moving her fawn when I walked out of the woods and spotted her.  When I realized she had her fawn with her, I began popping shots.

The fawn showed why nothing runs like a deer.

I saw that doe and that fawn off and on the rest of that summer, but spent more time taking pictures of the father.  Buck-fever some would call it.  But hey, he is impressive.

Here’s a photo of the proud father – his antlers still in velvet – from last summer.

During fall whitetails grow a second coat of fur to help them survive the cold.  I know you folks in Florida, Texas and other places in the south will find this difficult to believe but it gets really cold up here during winter.  The reddish summer coat gets covered with a grayish top coat.

Since I haven’t marked these deer and have no desire to do so, I can only say that I am fairly certain this is the same female pictured above.  Which means, if this is the same female, then the young deer with her is the same deer leaping in the photo above. 

White-tailed deer tend to be shy.

She separated from her mother long enough to let me have this shot, then the three of them moved off into the brush.

White-tailed Deer: The Band

Like Clint Eastwood in the movie “The Outlaw Josie Wales” they are always looking for an edge.  They will position themselves on top of a ridge because it offers good lines of sight and two or three downhill – for fast running – escape routes. 

I went hiking yesterday and they taught me another lesson about seeking an edge.  I had seen several deer near the campground when I got to the park.  So I parked where I usually do, about two miles from there so I could have a nice hike.  I had decided to walk the edge of the park and come in from behind where I had seen the deer.  We had a dusting of snow which limited the crunchiness and muffled the noise of me walking.  It also made tracking very easy.  With the temperature in the twenties – that would be around minus seven Celsius – I had a pleasant hike getting to where I knew the deer would be.  The wind got a little chilly on the way, but nothing too troubling, until I got to the campground.

The deer had placed themselves at the outer-edge of the campground with their backs to it.  That gave them the ability to see across the entrance road and into a pair of very large fields.  As I said the new snow muffled my footsteps so they wouldn’t be able to hear me, but what I had not accounted for was the wind.  On the way there it had been in my face, but when I got to the campground behind the deer, it was at my back.  They couldn’t hear me, but they could smell me and before I could even get into position to get a shot, I saw a deer with its tail raised as it ran downhill away from me.

Because I hadn’t accounted for the wind, instead of getting several easy shots, I ended up having to track them for another two and a half miles before I could get a shot.  They settled down after awhile and let me take several pictures like the one below.

Like I’ve said in other posts, I’ve been seeing a lot of deer lately.

Ice

Ice formations at Stephens Falls, Governor Dodge State Park.

White-tailed Deer: Doe Looking Over Her Shoulder

Stephens Falls and the Creek Below

From Above Stephens Falls, Governor Dodge State Park.

Stephens Falls, Governor Dodge State Park.

Melting water running down the side of the canyon creates a massive ice wall.

The creek winding through the canyon.

White-tailed Deer: Buck With Antlers

Some time during winter male white-tailed deer (bucks) will lose their antlers.  Last weekend I asked some local experts (relatives) when exactly bucks lose their antlers.  One point of view stated that “Bucks keep their antlers all winter and don’t lose them until the spring.”  Another point of view stated, “Bucks lose their antlers in late December.”

I’ve been seeing many deer in a local state park lately, but I haven’t seen any with antlers, which seemingly backs the theory that they lose their antlers in December.  While hiking yesterday, I spotted a pair of deer watching me from inside the forest as I hiked through a stand of trees where I’ve seen them feeding.  The very big deer above appeared, from this distance, to be larger than the deer to the right, so I focused my attention on it hoping to see antlers.  It doesn’t have any.

I took a few shots of both deer, but as soon as they realized I had noticed them, they ran off. 

Here’s a cropped version of the same picture showing this white-tailed deer still has antlers.  According to various websites I checked, the bucks drop their antlers anytime from December through February.  I’ve seen and taken pictures of this buck before and this rack has been worn down.  They constantly scrape those antlers on trees as a way of marking their territory and letting the females know where they can be found.

Stephens Falls: Ice Formations

Melting snow and water from a creek create these ice formations on the canyon walls at Stephens Falls in Governor Dodge State Park.

I still prefer wildlife photography, but the ice formations near Wisconsin’s waterfalls offer a unique winter perspective.

The lighting inside the canyon provided some unique challenges.

Bald Eagle: Adolescent Fishing

Last fall I posted some photos of a giant swarm of birds migrating south.  The small and medium-sized birds, along with most of the ducks and geese have all gone south.  Occasionally a flock of geese will pass through here but for the most part the birds are gone, except for the eagles.

Here is a picture of an adolescent bald eagle going in for a fish.  He missed.  The adults fish with such ruthless efficiency that I kind of feel for the fish, but the young eagles seem to miss more than they catch and so I kind of cheer for junior to actually catch a fish.

As with most youth, what they lack in skill they make up for with youthful exuberance.

I watched a dozen different bald eagles working this section of the Wisconsin River yesterday morning.  The adults would sit in a tree, occasionally swooping out to grab a fish and then right back to their perch.

The young eagles, like the one above, constantly flew around and their attempts at fishing met with less success than the adults.

Here an adolescent and an adult bald eagle sit watching as other eagles fly up and down the river trying to catch fish.  It’s as if I can hear the adult telling the young eagle to be patient.

White-tailed Deer: A Beautiful Day

When I was younger and dreams of literary greatness teased my brain, I used to read what other writers had to say about writing, hoping to glean some valuable nugget of information that would help me become a better writer.  A writer, from Stevens Point, lecturing in an English class I had, gave me one of those nuggets.  He said it was important to keep your characters in touch with their environment.  Is it cold?  Raining?  Night?  Day?  That was a long time ago and I really don’t write much anymore, mostly because no one has ever paid me to write.

There are white-tailed deer in this picture.  You’d have a hard time finding them even if you had been there.  I know there are deer in this picture because I had been pushing them for nearly two miles when I took this picture.

Yesterday, while hiking, I found a herd of white-tailed deer feeding at the bottom of a hill.  About ten of them.  Below four of them feed on tree bark, branches and soft grasses at the base of a tree.  The one on the right seems to be doing her best Rin Tin Tin impersonation.

They tolerated me for about five minutes and then moved off.

This big doe kept a watchful eye on me while the rest of the herd moved to another part of the park.  She was the last to leave. 

Now for the lesson about keeping your characters in touch with their environment.  We all know distinctive sounds.  The roar of a Harley Davidson motorcycle, or the sound that corduroy makes when walking for instance.  Snow has many different sounds depending on the type of snow it is.  Recently, the weather has been warm – in the thirties.  Much of the snow melted during the day and then froze again at night.  Add in some rain over the weekend and temperatures dipping down into the teens yesterday, and you get a really crunchy sounding snow.  Each step I took, yesterday, sounded similar to shaking a box full of Cheerios.  That’s a bad thing, because deer react adversely to noise – especially noise that sounds like a man walking.

But it was a beautiful day and I wanted to get more deer pictures or at least get far enough back into the woods to get some nice shots of the park that people don’t generally see.  So I found the deer run they used to make their escape and realized immediately where they were going.  So, crunch, crunch crunch I began tracking them.  We had a dusting of snow in the morning, amounting to about a half an inch of snow.  Perfect amount for tracking.  I could see their tracks and crunch, crunch, crunch, crunch that dad-burned crunching.  They’ll run off before I get anywhere near them.

So how did I get close enough to get this shot?  By understanding my environment.  This part of the park is bordered by a pair of roads.  They are not well traveled roads, but a car or two will come through every two or three minutes.  So whenever a car would come through I would move forward a few feet.  For nearly an hour I moved like that, wait for a car, move forward and then stay still when the car had passed. 

The doe in the picture above had been moving slowly along feeding.  I took a few shots and she didn’t notice.  She was obscured behind a tree so I took one step to get a better shot. 

CRUNCH! 

With one step I went from brilliant wildlife photographer to stupid moron, because as you can see in the above photo the deer is now looking right at me. 

She went back and told the herd and I got to watch about twenty deer run through here and disappear into the woods to the right.  Not to be deterred because the direction they were running in has them running through what hunters call a funnel.  With a road on one side, a big field on the other, their only choices are to continue forward, run across the field or turn back toward me.  So I headed out to the field and found their tracks walking along the edge of the woods.  They weren’t in a hurry, they know the human can’t move as fast as them.  Only problem is, it will be a mile or so before they stop moving.

This shot is from about a quarter of a mile away – much too far for my lens but what the heck.  All because of one crunching step they are now about a quarter of a mile ahead of me and all I can think about is that the sun is out and it is a perfect day to get their picture.  I don’t always understand their behavior, but sometimes they surprise me. 

There she is again – tail-end Charlie.  I don’t know why, maybe because I was on the ski trails where the humans are supposed to be?  Maybe they were tired and wanted to rest?  I don’t know why.  But they waited for me to catch up.

And I got one of those shots that I work really hard for.  They let me take about ten shots and then ran off again.  I headed deeper into the woods off the ski trails and took the first photo at the beginning and the next two below.

Parts of the park people don’t see.  There were no man-tracks back here, just animal tracks.  About an hour later I found the deer again.  They had stayed together and were feeding on the bushes near the campground.

But I was losing the light by then and decided to call it a day.

White-tailed Deer: Watchful Doe

So, I’ve got seven days off.  Do you think it even entered my mind to go someplace warm?

Bald Eagle: Lookin’ at Me!

Bald Eagle Catching and Eating a Fish

Mallards Eat Fish

Last week, while waiting for bald eagles to show, I took some photos of some mallards and discovered that mallards eat fish.  Having since done some research into the diet of mallards, because I did not know that mallards ate fish, I discovered mallards will pretty much eat anything. 

 

Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter

Deer Runs in Winter

I went hiking today.  The warmer weather has melted and froze the snow to the point of being compacted enough to walk on without sinking much.  No snowshoes required, especially when considering I mainly followed deer runs.  I realize now why deer will travel over and over the same trails.  It makes it really easy to travel through the snow.

 

The deer run in the photo above, I’ve seen at least a dozen different deer using this winter.  I followed it for at least a mile before breaking off onto another run.

When you begin to see droppings and other signs, you know deer have been through there recently.

This run had me headed directly into the wind and I really had thought I’d see some deer – but didn’t.

Today was the first time I’ve been back in this part of the park during winter.  There weren’t any skiers around so I wasn’t disturbing anyone.

I think its pretty this time of year – would have been prettier if I could see some deer.

There you are.

Hey!  Stop looking at me like I’m a sandwich.  I had followed the deer runs for about three miles and hiked through the snow for about five or six.  On the way I had noticed the deer runs had gotten smaller, because only a few deer seemed to follow.  Then I noticed droppings and other sign that seemed fresh.  Deer droppings will slowly melt into the snow until disappearing beneath it.  These droppings were on the surface.  Then I noticed tree bark broken and scattered around.  During the winter their stomachs change so they can eat harsher types of food like tree bark, acorns and pine needles.

Eventually, as they did today, they will run away.  The important thing to remember is they won’t run far.  And if you move slowly and carefully you can reacquire them to get more shots.

Mallard Eating a Fish

Bald Eagles: Gizzard Shad

During winter, a small fish – gizzard shad – an eagle favorite, is affected by the cold weather.  They swim erratically and close to the surface, making them an easy target for eagles.  If one eagle has a shad, other eagles have been seen trying to take the fish away.  Yesterday, I showed pictures of a young eagle snacking.  That bird had placed itself between two other adult eagles and one of them didn’t take well to more competition for the prized shad.

It flew off its perch from about two hundred yards away and zeroed in on the young eagle.  You’ll have to take my word for it because I only have one camera and I could only track one of the birds, but at this point the other eagle had taken off.

Whenever I see an animal rollover and expose their belly, I see it as an act of submission.  Maybe this is a celebration, but the younger eagle rolled over, they locked talons, and then it flew away.

While the eagle that drove it off then landed in a tree…

and continued to watch…

the river and me.

Until it flew back to its original perch – though it didn’t stay there for long.

Bald Eagle Landing

We saw two eagles before finding a place to park and watch.  One perched in a tree near a nest I know of, and a second had staked out a tree on an island near downtown Sauk City.  Fortunately for me, that bird got most of the attention and few people drove through by us.

This was the first bird to fly close enough for me to try and take some pictures.  Two other eagles had already perched about a quarter mile apart and this eagle flew to a spot between them.

Having spotted a log sitting near the edge of the opposite shore…

 

It glided in for a landing.

It hung out on the log for about ten minutes, when…

it hopped into the water at the end of the log for a snack.

And that’s when the fun began, because, as I mentioned before, two other eagles had staked out this part of the river.

To be continued…