Tag: MondayMuleDeer

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Awkward Fawn Late Spring

Awkward Fawn Late Spring
Awkward Fawn Late Spring

Awkward Fawn Late Spring

Languishing in my “to do folder” unnoticed from last spring was this little chubby gal fawn. She obviously has a lot of attitude. She was all business with her twin just off frame moments before. Now shes prancing about sticking her tongue out. You will notice the rounded belly of a baby that obviously has spent some time on the spigot. Moms lunch counter the two share. They mix that with tasty morsels from the buffet around them. I’m sure there are many good looking plants that tasted terrible though. Learning quickly is a trait of the species but this one is a mere baby when this was taken.

The deer live on what they forage . They are tougher than cattle with regards to eating certain plants. For instance, deer can eat pine needles and not abort their fetus.The turpentine in the pine needles can and will cause cattle to spontaneously abort.. So certain pastures with pine trees are not good winter pasture for cattle. Deer have a very tolerant system to deal with such things.

This fawn I have followed over the summer. This is miss “Perfect Ears” I’ve spoken of in other posts. She is always lagging behind the other two. More curious of things I believe. She is more than cooperative and tolerant of “Clever Girl” driving around, stopping and sitting with a big eye sticking out the drivers window…. I hope we have a mild wet winter… I miss the spring already….

Have a great night all from my workstation here on ranch 🙂

Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming / Montana borderlands (Wyotana)

Title: Awkward Fawn Late Spring

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What Am I Looking At

What Am I Looking At
What Am I Looking At

What Am I Looking At

I sure had to look twice at this. Ok, three times…. Maybe it’s just me….. 😜 It sat in my “Images to finish” pile for a few weeks, it kept popping up. I finally gave in and finished it. First of all it was VERY colorcast by the last seconds of the day sunlight painting the scene. IT was horrible to color correct back to reality. The illusion / confusion is just so durn unusual that I had to give in. Usually I’m placing problem children like this at the 6PM post position lolol.

Doing some quantity of photography of ungulates, I often get interesting “alignments of deer or Pronghorn. Usually easily when they are in herds. These two were all by themselves. I was actually quite a ways out from them. Having said that, the back doe wanted nothing to do with me having never seen a big black truck around before. They were out by some salt blocks mooching off the ranch.

Musings:

Ranchers do a LOT more for the wildlife than most non-ranchers understand. Feeding our cattle supplements birds, mice, deer, pronghorn and all the creatures that in turn eat on those. For Instance: We have kept 4 stock tanks open 365/24/7 for 18 years now. Believe me in this cold country, unfrozen water keeps these guys alive and around here. We pump that water which takes electricity. We only need to keep one tank open for our stock.

The deer are known for eating into hard collected haystacks. Powder River and Little Powder River Drainages are all rich in deer. An equally large number of partially eaten hay bales in stock yards lolol. Wildlife management is very important. Sometimes supporting them just a little makes it all possible. Take off the edge so to speak 🤔 .

Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands (Wyotana)

Title: What Am I Looking At

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Two Bucks for the Light

Two Bucks for the Light
Two Buck for the Light

Two Bucks for the Light

With all the cold weather lately, this image came to mind that spring isn’t that far away. Spring 2019… Bedded Deer Bucks chewing what ever goodies they regurgitated. … yumm… The grass that time of year is a wonderful brown/green color, the deer have all new coats. Their rapidly growing antlers are covered with the capillary blood vessel rich “Velvet” covering the bone under supplying it with nutrients.

Sometime later in the year they antlers will stop growing. The velvet starts to itch and they will rub those antlers tearing the velvet to ribbons. They will rub on any bush or tree unlucky enough to be in their path. Deer rubs on trees are good signs of deer activity and you can usually tell how recent they were.

Reminder: Photographic Musings (memorize this)

Terms you need to know: (F-stop) is your aperture size. The size of the “pupil” inside your lens. Big pupils (low fstop numbers) lets in a lot of light but your depth of focus is thin and shallow. (the eye is in focus but your ears are not). With a high F-stop number, you get a very deep field of focus/depth of field. The whole face and the trees behind the face are all in focus. This is because a high f-stop number makes a very small pin hole for a “pupil” in your lens.

F-stop is one of three settings you adjust in Manual mode. It is a double edged sword, deeper focus field comes from having a small aperture “pupil” which means less light. Light is what your balancing here. The other two settings (ISO and Shutter Speed) compensate for what your doing with f -stop in this case.

Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands (Wyotana)

Title: Two Bucks for the Light