Hello Deer!

I was driving home from my mischief (more on that on the next post) along a dirt road when I glimpsed a reddish brown something on the far left of my field of view. It was the same colour as the pine tree bark, but somehow it caught my attention. I was on a long straight stretch of road and there were no other cars, so I slammed the breaks and parked the car on the side of the road to see if the reddish brown something was an animal. I changed the lens of my camera really fast and jumped out. I walked back the road quietly, looking for the spot I though I saw something in.

And there it was, about 100 meters away, a deer! Damn, I never catch cool animals on the wild if I'm alone, all I ever see are birds, rabbits and moose tracks. Maybe it was the camouflage cap and green jacket I was wearing, or I am my fathers daughter after all.

I was under the wind, wearing camouflage and the deer hadn't yet spotted me, perfect. I jumped over a ditch, and started to make my way though the trees and foliage, moving slowly. It was minding its own business, just lounging around and eating, seemingly unbothered by anything. Once I got though the pine trees, and the deer was still unaware that it was being watched, I snapped a few pictures and then proceeded. I was getting closer and momentary loosing the deer from my sight, but I kept moving forward, little to the right because he seemed to be headed that way. I wanted to see how close I can get, and if I could come up to it from the front.

I knew that there was now only a few trees and bushes between us, and the deer was about 10 meters away from me so I waited for gust of winds so he wouldn't hear me come up to the little meadow. It worked perfectly and I'm really proud of my hunting skills, because when I stepped out from behind a bush, I had a straight view to the deer. And well, he had a straight view to me too, as you can see from the first image, and stared at me for half a minute, taking its sweet time to realise I was a human, aka, a predator. I kept very still and calm, snapped a few pics, and then let the deer run off.

For those who are interested, this specimen is a white-tailed deer stag, a big one at that, so my father says, and they are a bit harder to spot here in the northers parts of Central Finland.

I shot these images with the Nikon D7200 and Sigma 50-100mm f/1.8, which means that I really had to get close to get a good shot, because this is no wildlife photography lens. I think most wildlife photographers opt for lenses starting from 300mm.