One of the benefits to having my home office with a ground floor window that faces onto the back yard is that I get a front and center view to much of our local wildlife.
Because the window is set back under an overhang, many visiting creatures are completely unaware that "someone is there," providing many great photo ops.
This morning, I noticed a sudden movement out of the corner of my eye, and suddenly this young buck came into view... grazing peacefully on our rather long haired and weed infested lawn.
He was barely 20 feet (about 6m) from where I was sitting, and the only risk of him spotting me would be the movement of my reaching for the camera on the shelf behind me.
His head did pop up for just a moment, but then he went back to his breakfast.
Because our neighborhood is a fair distance from town and basically "out in the woods," we get quite a parade of visitors!
The deer population has grown considerably over the past decade, and thanks to the plentiful food of rather lush yards, they tend to be quite healthy looking, and the does often end up having twins — or even triplets — in the springtime.
At our place, they particularly seem to like the "evaporation field" connected to our septic system, because it's one of the few spots that stays green all summer long. In spite of this being "the rainy Pacific Northwest," our summers here are quite dry, with only a few scattered showers during the months of July and August, and almost nobody goes to the trouble of actually watering their lawns.
Of course, these lovely creatures also have the ability to decimate most plants we try to grow, and anything we try to grow for food has to be behind an 8-foot deer fence, or it would just end up as another part of their salad bar!
The local deer have also become relatively tame, in the sense that they no longer run away at the slightest sound. Hence this fellow not feeling too concerned about being so close to the house.
All in all, he must have stayed outside my office window for a good 5-6 minutes or so before the sound of a passing garbage truck caused him to make a run for the nearest thicket.
As always, I was glad to be able to not only take a quick "nature break," but also to get a few decent photos to share.
The bucks tend to be relatively few and far between... it is far more common that we see the does, often accompanied by their young ones, sometimes even two generations worth of them.
Whereas we do have a few predators around here — mostly in the form of mountain lions and coyotes, and an occasional bear — the deer generally are pretty safe as long as they just wander from yard to yard... in fact, it is more common to find a deer hit by a car or truck, than taken down by a predator.
Anyway, grateful for his visit, and glad to share a little slice of our local wildlife with everyone!
Thanks for stopping by, and I hope you enjoyed the pictures!
All images are our own, unless otherwise credited!
