Of Dunes and Deer
North-East Ohio is awash with deer and no place has more of them than the Mentor Headlands. I defy you to drive through the area any evening, pick a direction, look and not see a deer. They are more common than squirrels. This morning I went to the beach to take some photos as the sun rose. When first getting to the beach I was greeted by a young buck who barely looked in my direction before returning to his tree munching. Then further along the path there was a doe eating away. She did at least get out of my way as I passed.
The pictured deer, however, were really fun. Heading along another path a fawn came charging full speed over a dune and almost ran into me. Both of us startled, it was a bit faster to react and took off back over the dune. A few steps further I could see around the dune and saw it made a bit of a depression where there were two does and around five fawns. Moving slowly I setup my tripod and changed lenses to my telephoto lens.
I needn’t have bothered moving slowly. The same goes for the telephoto lens. The deer did not really care I was there and made their way directly to me as they grazed. One of the does kept coming closer and closer to me to the point that she was just screwing up my shots of the others as she got closer than 10 feet. I kept moving further away and they kept following.
That this species has survived man’s hunting over these many years we have occupied the same land is a testament to their reproductive effectiveness. But they do spruce up a landscape every once and a while.
[...] is a new post up at Andy Henry Photo showing the deer at Headlands [...]
[...] I had some time and so I walked around Headlands Beach in Mentor, Ohio. Normally when I am there I head off into the dunes but today I wanted to see what I could find just lying about the sand. All manner of oddity can be [...]