An Early Morning Deer Encounter ~ With A Surprise Ending!
I stuck my head outside the door early this morning. It was still very dark and a light rain was falling. Across the road, I saw an adult female mule deer calmly feeding on the wet grass. I bolted upstairs to grab my camera, hoping she would still be there when I returned.
When I say it was dark believe me! These photos have been brightened by close to four stops - that's something like eight times brighter! I'm so happy my camera focused fairly well in the dark. I had almost no time to make adjustments to the camera settings because the scene was unfolding too quickly.
A dog barks. An early morning dog walker was coming up the sidewalk. The doe turns, her ears pointing towards the sound.
She then takes a look into the yard...
then turns and begins to run away from the approaching dog.
I kept my camera on her as she ran away, having no idea what was about to happen next. Watch!
I didn't see the two fawns following her until they appeared in the viewfinder. What a cool surprise! I guess the fawns were inside the fenced yard, and mama gave the kids some kind of signal... let's go!
These photos were taken with my Nikon D750 camera and Tamron 150-600 zoom lens. Most of them were at 1/640 second, f/5.3, 240mm, ISO 1600 (with minor variations from frame to frame as I tried to twiddle some knobs to brighten the scene while shooting).
How's your Saturday going? I'm wishing you all a happy weekend, thanks very much for reading!
Aw. What a beautiful encounter @keithboone. How clever of you to catch that on camera. 😊
Thank you @gillianpearce! I'm glad you think it was clever... I mostly think about how slow I was to get the camera adjusted. I can't change my ISO in the dark without taking my eye away from the viewfinder. I can't do this by feel... I want to show you the straight-out-of-camera shot of mama looking into the gate... and what?... whistling to the kids??? Here is the third image, no joke! :)
Wow. That's amazing @keithboone. I wouldn't have thought it was possible to turn that into the photographs you posted. You're even cleverer that I thought! 😂
I'm dead impressed. 😁
The thing is, the raw files from a D750 have a lot of data and dynamic range. I've pushed the images past the point of looking good... if you zoom in close the noise is pretty bad, but for this sort of thing, I don't mind at all. I'm pretty sure these images wouldn't print well. Thanks again, Gillian! :)
Well I am still amazed @keithboone. I had no idea that such a thing was possible.
Have a fun Sunday! 😊
Thank you @pixresteemer!
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Thank you!
Awwww😄 This is so cute😍🦌 you were lucky to caught on cam!😉
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Thanks so much, glad you liked them! :)
Love seeing the deer photos. I was in N.B. The last few days for my Aunt’s funeral and stayed at my brothers house on the old farm I grew up on- slept in the same bedroom I had as a child. My point?...In the evening two beautiful deer came out in the field and we could see them from the house.
Have a good Sunday, Keith. U&R.
Sorry to hear about your Aunt, but kind of cool to stay in your old room I'm sure. I hope you're having a good weekend!
howdy sir keithboone! haha, what a cool set of shots sir, so you might have more visitors at night than you realize.
Hey, thanks a lot! Yes, I suppose there may be some other nocturnal critters visiting for sure. I don't see many racoons but I'm sure they must be around and hiding during the day.
howdy sir keithboone! well sir, someone told us that we would be shocked if we put up a night camera to record everything that comes through at night so I suppose it would be the same there and racoons I think is a likely bet!
I used to live in Toronto before moving here, and they call themselves the racoon capital of the world. I just saw an estimate of 100,000 racoons in Toronto, but I actually thought the number was higher!
Ha! I didn't think they would be that thick up there but I guess the long, cold winters agree with them!
It had something to do with the city starting a green bin recycling program years ago that left a lot of waste food outside. Eventually, they switched to some other kind of container the critters couldn't get into but it was way too late!
lol. oh that sounds like a government program doesn't it? lol.
That is so cool! I actually got to watch a mama deer with two fawns teaching them how to respond to her signal to startle. They were just tiny and they were in the backyard right outside my bedroom window and she would stamp her foot on the ground and jump sideways and they would just stand there and look at her, like where you going mom? And then she would come back and do it again and stamp her foot and jump sideways. I think she did it 5 times before they finally figured out that they were supposed to react. Until seeing it, it was not something that I realized that the young ones needed to be taught. But it was obvious that she was teaching them.
Foot stamping! Brilliant, I wondered how they communicated. How cool to watch this from your bedroom window! I love seeing the deer but a lot of people consider them pests because of the damage they do to gardens.