More Deer Photos – Old Quarry Trail, Kanata, Ontario
I’ve started off today’s blog with a photo of a young fellow trying to feed a number of white-tailed deer which came in quite close but, in the end, ate from the ground but not from his hand. I told him that he and the deer would be on the internet tonight so I had to get to work on this blog as soon as I got home :-).
Today was a good day to be out on the trail looking for the local deer herds to photograph. As I’ve mentioned in previous blog entries, the deer, chickadees and nuthatches along the trails of Ottawa’s Greenbelt can be very accommodating. Although they are ‘wild’ and free to come and go as they please, they are also very used to seeing humans with their hands out. The chickadees and nuthatches will readily alight upon an outstretched hand to take a sunflower seed or two.
The deer will often come in quite close to pick up a carrot or piece of apple that is thrown their way and quite a few people will take buckets of deer feed along the trails with them to ensure that the deer are not suffering in any way during the winter months. Sometime, depending on their mood, the deer (especially the does) will come right up to the outstretched hand to take the piece of carrot or apple. This X/C skier stopped to chat and tell me how his British friends found it hard to believe that the “wild” deer would come right out onto the trail as he skied by them. Hard to argue with the pictures 🙂 Unfortunately, this doe opted for the apple that someone left on the trail instead of coming for the bit of apple in the skier’s hand.
The young buck and the older buck were both present again today and not as skittish as they had been a few days earlier.
On my previous visit, the older buck had eyed me pretty cautiously and looked like he might be about to stomp his feet and challenge my presence but today we got along quite well. It is now the end of the ‘rut’ season but the bucks can still be a bit temperamental especially when guys like me wearing speckled brown clothing come walking along :-).
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love the blog and pics of the deer.