Huntin' season again

Here it is again, already. This time of year, the boy deer leave the herds and band together to hunt for girl deer, with the bigger, stronger boy deer getting the prettiest girls. Molly disappeared about a month ago; he was bigger than Shorty and either left to join the boys or otherwise left us. I hope he joined the big boys.

Last night the big girls and the babies came for dinner without Shorty, who's usually the first one in line, along with little Kelly. I happened to glance out the side window and saw this:

He doesn't look real, does he? I swear he looks like one of those fake deer that hunters put in their yards for target practice. He's been glimpsed by us before, but we never got a good look at him. I doubted that I'd actually seen him at all, just dreamed him.

But there he was, watching the girls eat. He walked carefully around the front yard, which made the girls very nervous. He didn't seem uncomfortable at all, but he wouldn't come up to eat with the rest of the group.

He stood behind the tree and sniffed the air.

Then the smallest of the babies followed him away from the herd. This baby is very skittish all the time, so I couldn't believe that she'd leave her mommy to follow this big unknown daddy deer. Her mommy was perturbed, but not perturbed enough to stop eating, just stamped and snorted a bit.



A bit later, Shorty and another male (one we haven't seen before) showed up.


I hope they all stay close by.