A bit of a blood donation and luck contributed to this image of this 10-point white-tailed deer the other day.

Sadly we don’t have them in our backyard much anymore. Ever since getting a taller fence (necessary for dog retention) – I have never seen them in our yard. On a rare occasion, I find evidence they have been there during winter. A 5-foot fence isn’t too tough of a hurdle if a deer really wants to jump it. But we do often see them wandering the woods on the other side or in our unfenced neighbor’s yard.

This guy was spotted early yesterday morning and I only observed him for a while through binoculars as he browsed just beyond our back fence. I figured – OK, cool – make a note in the Backyard Wildlife Journal and go on with my day. I didn’t expect him to hang around for very long.

A few hours later I was checking the yard for any potential dog/critter conflicts before I let our dogs out (a daily and highly necessary risk management measure) – and guess what – that deer was still hanging out in back. Huh – maybe I shouldn’t pass up a second opportunity. So I told our dogs “ok, you are going to have to hold it for a few more minutes” while I grabbed my camera to see just how tolerant of an approach this fella would be. I didn’t expect much more than a grab shot, just documenting he was there, maybe get close enough to see how many points.

I started walking slowly in our yard and saw the deer stomp at me. A sure signal he saw me and knew I was up to some no-good human funny-business. So I enacted my highly-practiced “lost-dumb-human-looking-at-nothing-but-grass-and-rocks technique.” This allowed me to make my way all the way up to our fence while the deer just kinda watched suspiciously (or amused), went about looking for something to eat, but not stomping anymore.

Combined with this slow, ninja-inspired approach is the fact our yard has been mosquito hell since July 4. Heavy, frequent rains combined with high temps led to the perfect combination of one of the biggest mosquito erruptions we’ve had in many years. As I didn’t plan to be outside for more than a few minutes, dogs already waiting, I skipped the bug spray. The back of our yard is in shade under spruce trees – aka. mosquito central.

Swatting mosquitoes is not a compatible body movement with these ninja-style moves, so it was pretty much sucking it up until you get a few photos. I am pretty sure I heard quite a few of them scream “LUNCH” in unison. The buck was wandering about in and out of the brush, difficult to get a clear view, slowly moving deeper into the woods. Then – I saw another deer. He had a friend!

Another buck, which was about a 6-8 point was lurking about not far away. He didn’t seem so concerned with me either – probably figuring I would soon be consumed by the insects to be any threat. At this point, I was pretty close to the “f… it” point in my tolerance level of mosquito bites – grabbed a few frames of his friend (none worth keeping), and called it quits. After confirming they wandered deep enough into the woods for the dogs to ignore them – I let the dogs out. Then I went inside and popped a Benedryl, leaving the editing / checking if I got anything until later in the day.

As I was using my 36 MP D810 – I could zoom in on quite a bit of detail on the deer’s face. Turns out I counted he had about 8 engorged mosquitoes on his face. To his credit, he seemed quite more tolerant of them than I was.