What startled me when I raised my glance

So there I was on May 1st on a path coming off Yaupon Dr. on the far side of my neighborhood. I walked slowly, gazing down at either side of the path in search of native wildflowers, when something at the top of my field of vision brought me to a standstill: not far in front of me, lying right in the middle of the trail, was a fawn. I remembered reading that a fawn instinctively stays put and doesn’t move when its mother leaves it alone, and that was the case with this fawn. During the several minutes that I took a few pictures, it never budged an inch. Had I been a coyote or an off-leash dog, the fawn’s immobility would have been useless.

A few minutes earlier, before advancing this far, I’d looked ahead and spotted an adult deer that stared at me for five or ten seconds from farther down the trail, then moved away. That must have been the fawn’s mother.

© 2021 Steven Schwartzman

White-tailed deer stag

I opened my front door a couple of hours ago and saw a white-tailed deer stag (Odocoileus virginianus) nestled on the lawn. Getting my camera, which conveniently had a long lens on it, I quietly opened the door again, went outside, and gradually inched my way forward. At some point the deer became aware of me, stood up, and slowly started to walk away. That’s when I noticed it had a limp in one of its rear legs. Keeping my distance, I followed as it walked across the street and began eating some of my neighbor’s plants and even what appeared to be grass in the lawn. I assume the stag was hungry enough to eat things that deer generally avoid. From time to time the stag stopped and looked up at me, as shown here, but never seemed frightened.

© 2019 Steven Schwartzman

Another staredown

Driving out of my neighborhood along Bluegrass Drive on June 12th I spotted
a white-tailed deer, Odocoileus virginianus. I stopped to watch it. It stopped to watch me.

© 2019 Steven Schwartzman

Not passing the buck

White-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) live in my northwestern part of Austin—or I in theirs, depending on your point of view. It’s common to see does, but bucks put in rarer appearances. While driving home on February 6th I decided to detour along Q Ranch Rd., where I’d seen deer in the woods on other occasions. Sure enough, I quickly spotted a group, and to my surprise all had antlers. After pulling over in the first available place I walked back and managed to get about a dozen pictures before the last of the deer had moved out of range.

© 2019 Steven Schwartzman

Deer drinking

I’ve seen many deer, even in my yard in Austin, but not till October 22nd of last year in Zion National Park did I see a deer drinking. The water was the North Fork of the Virgin River.

© 2017 Steven Schwartzman

Homecoming

 

The day after we returned from the big three-week trip to the Midwest, our across-the-street neighbor told me that while we were away she’d seen two white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginiana) on our lawn, a fawn and its limping mother. Some days later, on June 28, I was driving down our street on my way home when, sure enough, I spotted the deer on our front lawn. I pulled over to the curb, slowly and quietly got out, put a long lens on my camera, and took some pictures. I noticed that the doe still limped as she walked and that not one but two fawns were following her. You’re looking at one of them.

(I’ve been photographing back here in Texas for five weeks already but you’re still going to see more pictures from Missouri, Illinois, and Indiana.)

© 2016 Steven Schwartzman

Two deer browsing

After we came out of the restaurant in the Chisos Basin at Big Bend National Park on the morning of November 23rd, I noticed two deer hanging around, so I switched to a long lens and followed them for a while as they nibbled various plants. I think these were mule deer, Odocoileus hemionus, rather than the white-tailed deer found in Austin as well as the Trans-Pecos, but if anyone knows for sure, please speak up.

© 2015 Steven Schwartzman

What I found in Great Hills Park

On May 19th I parked along the aptly named Floral Park Dr. to take some pictures of the white prickly poppies and Mexican hats growing in the southern section of Great Hills Park, but as soon as I got out of my car I noticed a white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) at the edge of the woods on the far side of the Mexican hat colony. I switched to my longest lens and walked over to the railing by the sidewalk, whereupon the deer noticed me and began staring and listening, as shown here. From the velvet-covered antlers forming on the deer’s head I take this to be a young male, but occasionally female deer grow antlers too.

The large green leaves and the tall dry stalks flanking the deer represent two stages in the life of frostweed (Verbesina virginica), the plant that you’ve seen do its magic ice trick when the weather gets cold enough here in the fall.

© 2015 Steven Schwartzman