The Young Buck

After many close calls and sightings when my camera was not at hand, I finally got a chance to photograph one of our young bucks.

This fellow stopped by yesterday evening to eat mulberries in the back yard. Lisa had just walked into the kitchen, then walked calmly back into the living room and stated "There's a buck in the backyard." Get too excited around here and our dog Jackson does too, and scares everything away.

I was not able to get great pics as I had to shoot through a window screen. I was afraid that if I opened the screen I'd scare him off, so I settled for some shaky hand-held shots and a lot of Photoshop.

While I was snapping pics two of our chickens came running from behind my studio all helter-skelter like, then stopped dead for a moment to check out the visitor.

Shortly thereafter something spooked him and he bolted a few steps, spooking the chickens in the process.

He settled down to eat some more berries, then walked calmly off the stage, our chicken Trouble following behind.

And as I watched him leave I thought to myself, "this is why we plant marigolds...."