In Which I Try to Sneak Up on Deer

True fact #1: Deer are not scared by a back porch light. They will still raid the bird feeder.

True fact #2: It is hard to sneak up on deer, even in your own back yard. I spent half an hour trying.

True fact #3: It is even harder to get a picture of said deer in the dark.

So once again, the Creepy-Deer-That-Stare-At-You-When-You-Try-And-Fail-To-Take-Their-Picture were back in the yard, raiding the bird feeder.  

This time, however, I was prepared...or so I thought.

As mentioned in my previous entry about the Creepy Deer, last night I decided to leave the back porch light on and see if they would still come and raid the bird feeder.   There were two reasons for this: to see if they would be too scared of the light to come into the yard, and if they did then maybe it would be light enough for me to get a picture.

They were not scared.  In fact, they brought friends!  Tonight it was a posse of four, although I only saw two at the feeder at any given time.

I tried, and failed, once again to take pictures of them from the back bedroom.  Even with the porch light on it was not light enough near the feeder to get a good picture.  My brilliant plan failed.  Using a flash once again yielded only craptastic pictures of my window screen.

I decided to be proactive and go to the deer, since the flash didn't seem to phase them at all.

I slowly opened the back door and crawled out onto the porch as quietly as possible.  I didn't want them to see or hear me and bolt.  

Carefully, I slowly opened the back porch door.  I figured I probably had one good chance at a photo with the flash before they ran.  That part I was right about.  Sadly, I still didn't get a decent picture.

This was my first attempt.  You can still see the snow in the air from when they took off running, and their little glowing eyes in the neighbor's back yard.  (Yes, I was shooting in black & white.  I was hoping the contrast would give me a better result.)

I tried to zoom in on them in the neighbor's yard.  I got 4 sets of glowing eyes.  This is how I know they brought a posse this time.


I did try walking across the yard to get a better picture of them in the neighbor's yard, but to no avail.  They took off running.

And this was the state of my bird feeder.  When I got home from work this evening it was still more than half full.  They emptied it again.

Tonight I will once again try to get a picture of the deer in action, emptying my bird feeder.  I need to come up with a better plan.  Perhaps if I leave a light out next to the bird feeder, making the whole area brighter, then I will have a better chance at getting a photo.

If you have any ideas, let me know!

Creepy Deer

So first there needs to be a little back story here...

About a month ago I was talking to the neighbor that shares my back property line.  He was removing a bunch of trees (which is good because then they won't fall on my garage again!), and I had gone to take a look.

Now, my back yard is tiny.  On the short walk to the back fence I noticed these weird piles of poo in my yard.  It wasn't from a dog or a cat, both of which I have seen wandering through the neighborhood on a fairly regular basis.  It looked too big to be from a squirrel, groundhog or possum, which are the only other animals I have seen.

My neighbor tells me it must be from the deer.  He swears they are here all of the time, hanging out in the yards.  I agreed with him, but I really thought he was wrong.  We live in a little neighborhood between 2 major roadways.  There aren't really any big wooded areas for the deer to hang out in during the day.  They would have to be like commuter deer or something that came from Elsewhere.  I've been here two and a half years and I have never seen a deer in the yard.

Now fast-foward to last night.

It was about 1 in the morning.  I was getting ready to go to bed, turning off the lights and double-checking that I had locked the front and back doors of the house.  It was a clear night, and you could still see everything outside pretty well because it was just a full moon not too long ago,  and all of the snow makes things brighter.

I was in the kitchen, turned off the light, and I was double-checking that I had locked the back door that leads to the back porch.  I happened to look through the door window and through the back porch door into the yard.  I saw this big black shadow in the yard.

OMG!  WTF is in my yard?!

I didn't want to turn on the light and alert whatever was out there that I had seen it.  All I could see was a big shadow and most of it was legs.

I made sure the door was locked, and then I crept around to the back bedroom to get a better view into the yard from the window in there.

There they were, about 6 feet from my back porch: two deer, eating the bird food off of the ground.  Holy crap, my neighbor was telling the truth!

They looked enormous!  It took me a minute to figure it out.  The snow is so hard, because we had a lot of ice and sleet in the last storm, that you don't sink into it at all.  You can walk across my yard without leaving a foot print at this point.  The deer, one in particular, looked so tall because they were standing on a pile of snow!  One was almost as tall as my garage roof!

They were happily muching away, and then the bigger of the two would swing the bird feeder with its head and spill more of the bird food onto the snow.

Well, I had to get my phone to get a picture of this.  Wildlife!  Up close and personal in my yard!

So I made my way back through the house in the dark to get my phone, and snuck back into the bedroom.  Yup, deer are still there.

I thought there was enough light outside to get a picture without using the flash, but it didn't work.  All I got was a black square for my troubles.  Hmm.  Maybe my digital camera would work, if I put it on the black and white setting?  So I went and got that as well.

No dice.

What now?  I decided to try one with the flash.  The deer probably wouldn't really see it or notice, since I was inside and there is a bush  in front of the window to screen me from their sight a bit, right?

Wrong!

The flash goes off, and I end up with a crappy picture of the window screen.

The deer both freeze.

Then, in what seemed like slow motion,  they both look up and turn and stare directly at the window.

I swear, I think they saw me!  It was so creepy!

The three of us were frozen in this weird staring contest for a minute or so, and then they apparently decided I was not a threat and went right back to eating again.

I decided that was enough happy fun time with the creepy deer for one night, and I went to bed.

This morning when I left for work I had to refill the bird feeder.  They emptied the entire thing!

So tonight I am doing an experiment.  I am leaving the light on the back porch on to see if they are brazen enough to come in the yard when the light is on.  If they do I am hoping that the porch light will make it possible to get a picture of them eating all of my bird food.

Isn't this exciting?  Do you feel involved in my weird problems?

Stay tuned for further developments!