A couple of weeks ago I was on my back deck and noticed something tiny out of the corner of my eye. At first I thought it was a squirrel, but looking closer it was a tiny, wobbly little mule deer fawn. I don’t think it was more than a few hours old. I went inside to get my camera, but it was gone when I got back outside.
Since then I’ve seen the little one on most days, but she’s still skitterish. As she gets older she gets braver and notices the adults don’t immediately run off. But she still runs! I have a number of blurry flying fawn photos now :D. But she doesn’t run as far, and if I’m patient and keep still, she’ll come back.
Challenges
I’m also faced with a few other photography challenges. I’m on a deck a floor or more higher than the ground. There’s a flat space, then it continues to slope down and away from me. Also there’s limited openings. Often the fawn is partially obscured by branches, tree trunks or manzanita. Because of the trees, the light is very dappled – super bright to very dark just a few inches apart. Soooo basically there’s only a few ideal spots for this faun to wander to for me to get a nice portrait. After a while, eventually it wandered to a good spot and even was kind enough to look up. (Likely because I moved the camera). But she didn’t dart away. I still hope to get a portrait from eye level, this suffers a bit from looking almost straight down on her, but I’ll get there.
Mule Deer Ears
I just adore the ears. While most of the information online suggests they are used to improve hearing (I do see them turning their ears like Doppler antennae to narrow down the source of a sound) I also often see them using the ears like fans to brush flies away. One buck was so bothered by some horse flies while trying to nap, he simply covered his eyes with his ears.
