You'll Put Your Eye Out!!!

 One minute they were grooming and smooching, Ringo giving TinyTine a delightful massage with teeth and tongue, and the next thing I knew, Ringo was all of a sudden sorta jabbing TinyTine in the neck. You liked the massage? How you like this? Bucks will be bucks.

 

And the poky-jabby move morphed into a push-fight.

 I hope you click on these and view them all larger, because my eyes, at least, aren't good enough any more to see the detail at this size. Look at TinyTine's eye in the photo below. (he's the right hand animal). It's shut. I have seen enough buck sparring matches now to get really nervous about the combatants' big vulnerable eyes. I wonder why I don't see more bucks with one eye, the way those tines rattle and thrust around. Maybe there's something in the architecture to spare their eyes when they're locked together, but it makes me extremely antsy to watch these matches.

 

The other thing that makes me nervous is the possibility that their antlers will lock together. Then what do I do? Go out and throw a tarp over them and take a hacksaw to them? Arrgh. What an awful thought, and far too dangerous to mess with. You could really get banged up getting in the middle of two terrified, locked-together bucks. It'd be like climbing into a Cuisinart.

So I watch these matches with a mixture of excitement and anxiety, hoping nobody gets his eye poked out, or worse. Obviously, Lil' Pisser is watching with some concern as well!

I love this portrait of the three of them. TinyTine on the left; Ringo on the right, and Lil' Pisser in the middle, right where he likes to be, alla time. Do you know how lucky I feel to be able to witness stuff like this?

 

This is what it looks like from the couch. Thanks to Bill for this shot of the deerstalker, stalking deer from inside the big heated blind! Most of my sessions are done around daybreak. I look out, see deer, throw on a bathrobe and go. I usually freeze my tuchis off in the process. 

Worth it, though, because the deer never know they're being watched, and they do whatever they do, which is exactly what I want them to do. 

Sorry to dash the vision of anyone who thought I get shots like this while wearing a ghillie suit and jungle-crawling through the little bluestem.

 

Do click on this one, to see TinyTine (on left) get a prong-scrape to his jaw. That HAS to hurt! I just hate the idea of fighting with your head. I would make a lousy whitetail buck. I'd be all, "You two fight it out. I'm gonna see if I can find a doe while y'all are going at it." I understand that young bucks do exactly that, with some success. :)

 

And click on this one, to see what I mean about the eyes being so vulnerable.  I do love how Lil' Pisser watches so intently. He's picking up pointers, for sure.

 

 It's hard to believe that TinyTine and Ringo had that tender couple of minutes earlier, as Tiny drives Ringo to the ground. Tiny is long and rather short-legged, but he's got tremendous hindquarters and a lot of strength. He's clearly besting Ringo here. If I had to guess I'd say Lil' Pisser is rooting for Ringo. He looks quite concerned.

 

 Tiny keeps driving, and Ringo is still down.

Finally, Ringo breaks, and Lil' Pisser leaps backward, too, as the clinch explodes in a defeat for Ringo. 

 I don't care who wins. I'm just glad nobody got hurt. You'll put your EYE out!!

 The two pals became combatants. And not long afterward, they went for Round Three! I couldn't get good shots that round because they were too far down the slope. Clearly, Ringo hadn't had enough.

 I was about to say I don't know how we got so lucky as to have all this fabulous buck action in the meadow. But I give all the credit to my little gal Flag, for stinkin' up the place and bringing them into the ring.
Now I'm curious as all getout to see if Flag turns up with a late fawn in August!

So the story goes, on and on. I love a story that goes on.

photo by Bill Thompson III

This post is dedicated to the memory of my Canon 7D, seen here in use, which probably made more than 250,000 photos for me and you before giving up the ghost on January 24, 2019. It was not performing very well, having increasing trouble seeing and tracking birds in flight, and its low-light performance was flagging. A probably minor issue with the SIM card slot (I couldn't get it in or out!) was simply not worth repairing, given that the camera is pretty much done for. It went to South Africa three times, to Ecuador twice; to Costa Rica four times; it gave us Jemima and Chet and all the beautiful birds and butterflies of Indigo Hill and surrounds. So when I couldn't re-insert the memory card, I knew it was time. I called Sonnie the Canon/Sony Guy at Midwest Photo Exchange, who knows me and what I do, and asked him what I wanted. What a thrill, to recognize his voice the second he picked up the phone! The entire transaction was finished in minutes, though we spent quite awhile catching up on other fronts. Gosh, it's lovely to just cut to the chase, eliminate the research, pick up the phone and ask Sonnie what to buy. My Canon 80D  (I like saying it because it sounds like Canon ADD) camera body arrived the next day (Jan. 25) and I've been having a blast test-driving it. Photos soon to follow. 

Because life without wildlife photography is just breathing, eating, pooping and sleeping. Thank you, 7D, for all the memories. 

Shooting a glorious sunbittern at Villa Lapas, Costa Rica. Trying hard to remember who took this. And it was Amy Girten, my dear love. Thank you. Glad to smoke you out. And yes, I remember dropping my iPhone 4 down over the bank onto rocks, and the sweet guide who retrieved it for me!

Schneakin' Up On Bucks

 Every morning I get up in the dark. I raise the blinds and go back to bed to write in my journal. I write down my dreams, and then segue into whatever's on my mind. Maybe I plan something, start writing a talk, chew over something that's been bugging me, or just write about what I'd most like to do next. It's a hopeful journal.

Also hopeful is waiting for first light, to see if there's anyone out in the meadow. My heart pounds as the light comes up, especially if I see shapes out there.  On this morning, I saw two shapes in the path not far from the house. One was a pretty buck, and the other I couldn't quite tell. But from the way they were behaving, I knew it was time to suit up and get out there.

I schnuck out the front door, closing it soundlessly, and slunk over behind the Rose of Sharon. The clotheslines made a green cut across the scene, but at least I could sort of see what was going on from here.

 OMG! sparring bucks!

 It didn't look like a very even match to me!

 When they broke up I could see it was an 8 versus a spike. The big boy thought he saw something. I held perfectly still. And amazingly, they went back at it. With those damn green clotheslines still screwing up my shots.

This was not a pitched battle. It almost seemed gentle. Their motions were slow and smooth, without any of the furious pushes or shiftings of position you'd expect if they were really fighting.

The older buck had a beautiful high rack with long tines. I wouldn't call it massive, but it's my favorite kind of rack from an aesthetic viewpoint. I'd about had it with the clotheslines. I decided to go for it. So I waited until they went into another mini-match and then I took a deep breath and schlooped like Napoleon Dynamite across the open lawn. I raced over to the edge of the prairie meadow and buried myself behind the dead stalks of a big gray sunflower, holding my breath and staying down.

Oh so much better! And they never knew I'd done it. All hail testosterone and distracted bucks. From here, I could hear their antlers clicking together. It was so cool, with the sumac on fire behind them and the frost on the grass.

The older buck kept looking around like he sensed the presence of other deer. Maybe there were does around, and he could smell them. He wasn't 100% into the match.

 

 He could have annihilated the younger buck if he'd wanted to, but instead he just kept politely answering the repeated requests to engage.

You can see from the ear position that the small buck is feeling ornery.

He just kept buggin' the big buck.

I don't fully understand how antler fights work. How they keep from getting their eyes poked out. Especially when you have a tiny set of spikes and you're up against a long tined tree. I liked this next shot. Click on that one. You can see the whites of their eyes. As you can see I was shooting through the sunflowers, and they had no idea I was right there.

It occurred to me that the white throat and belly of a deer must have some powerful social signaling function, beyond the countershading camouflage value.  It's the white flag of surrender, perhaps.

And still that little cuss kept pushing it. Maybe he was practicing, knowing his battles would be for real next fall. It seemed to me quite charitable of the big buck to keep answering his challenges.

It isn't often you get to be present for a sparring match. I took a lot of photos. I'm going to save some for  the next post, because my gosh. A lot of stuff happened next. I felt so lucky to be there. It was as if I'd been given a Cloak of Invisibility.

Postscript: This morning, Dec. 9, I was schneakin' up on bucks from first light until 9 AM. What I was privileged to witness makes this look like child's play, literally. Gonna be a Deery December. Hope you like whitetails! :D xo jz