Here’s a moment from yesterday at dusk. Part of our local “herd” of adult does and yearlings have started browsing slowly up the North Field. Some of these White-Tailed Deer will stay the night, curling down and making a grass nest; others will move on to another bedding place on nearby property; others will not sleep.
Three browsing yearlings on the flank get to about 100 yards from us and see something curious in the surrounding woods. They don’t do a yellow alert freeze; they keep coming, but with eyes and ears in action mode, unable to get a whiff of an unusual shape that is upwind from them. That shape is not moving and crouched over a camera and monopod. On hearing a “click,” they veer off toward the rest of the herd, but at a walk. They’re very calm tonight. (Brooklin, Maine)