It was a bright, cold Monday morning in the Valley.
As usual, I decided to venture out there for some much-needed outside time. Of course, I didn’t go without my Rebel T7 to take pictures of whatever caught my interest.
Since it was so cold, I ventured out wearing my worn out pair of hiking Uggs (AKA Uggs with YakTrax on them), my down feather camo coat over one of my many camo hoodies, leggings underneath my jeans, and thick sheepskin gloves. I didn’t plan to stay out for too long, but I wanted to be prepared regardless (especially since I’m a perpetually cold person in the fall and winter).
Right as I was stepped onto the snow-blanketed grass from the icy parking lot, movement to my left caught my eye. A whole herd of deer bounded over a split rail fence, one-by-one, into the backyard of one of those million-dollar homes in the valley. From what I could tell, they were all does. Well… that was until the buck came huffing down the hill right as I was setting up my camera to get a shot of the does sticking their snouts into a birdfeeder. Alarmed, all of the does stopped what they were doing and jumped the fence into the next yard over, just as the buck jumped in just behind them. Clearly, that buck had one thing on his mind, and it wasn’t in the birdfeeder.
At first, I thought it was El Jefe, as that buck’s rack was large and mature. But, upon reviewing my photos after I got home, I realized that it wasn’t El Jefe, but some younger mature buck. After a moment, the herd calmed down, and the buck began to trot around the perimeter of the herd his head low, ears back, and tongue tasting the air. He set his sights on a mature doe, ignoring the rest of the startled herd, and chased her from yard to yard, all while I stood roughly 200 yards away, taking as many decent pictures as I could while enjoying the spectacle myself.
Finally, after jumping several fences and running around in circles, the buck successfully wore out the doe. But, she was still standing and had just enough energy to keep the rutting buck off of her.
At that point, buck fever began to settle into me, and I had to take a break from shooting with my camera (I was shaking intensely). Meanwhile, the buck continued harassing the doe, who was getting sick of his shit very fast. Her ears were back, her eyes were narrow, and she would trot away every time the buck tried to get on his hind legs behind her. Suddenly, just as the buck had the doe cornered near someone’s back porch, a barking dog spooked them out of their dance. Both deer stood still and tall, their ears aimed towards the source of the noise.
And then, the doe made a break for it, diving under the back porch and bounding out of sight into the house’s front yard, the buck not far behind her.
Like the deer, I moved on in search of more things to take pictures of. And well… not 100 yards later, I found even more deer. This time a fawn and its mama, laying in the grass near the Bradford house. Somehow, they didn’t notice that I was coming in behind them, so I took the chance to get some pictures of them laying in the grass. Certainly, once I approached, they’d get up. After all, it was rutting season, and the does were on high alert for annoying bucks looking to share their genes.
Unfortunately, my camera didn’t want to focus on the deer. Instead, it focused on the grass between me and the deer. So, I took a chance and switched the lens into manual focus mode. Finally, I focused in on the deer laying in the grass just before the wind shifted and she caught my scent.
