Here’s a white-tailed deer quartet that I snuck up on in yesterday’s light rain. A couple of them had just realized that I had slipped within their comfort zone:
The eyes of a startled or amazed deer are fascinating; they seem to enlarge. You have to wonder what thoughts they have at such a time. See, e.g., the eyes of this yearling, which also may have some genetic (piebald/leucism) whitening issues:
As for the weather, white-tails have a reduced ability to scent humans at a distance in the rain, according to reports. However, other reports indicate that humidity enhances deer olfactory systems’ ability to detect scent molecules. Since rain increases humidity, the tracking advantages of rain may be something of a trade-off in many situations.
Nonetheless, rain usually makes tracking deer quieter, which seems to provide an edge over dry-weather tracking, albeit sometimes an uncomfortable one. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on May 2, 2025.)