Deer and the Rut
| 5 imagesI spent some time photographing coyotes at sunset, and of course as the sun got lower in the sky, out came the deer. The rut is on, and I managed to get a couple good shots of a buck chasing down a stray doe. The featured photo is of a deer I now call “Prancer”, as he was definitely prancing after his wayward girl. 🙂 This guy is one of the largest in the park…I believe there is one larger than him. There is also another that has one hell of a rack, with more points than all the others and in quite an arrangement. Hopefully once I get the EF 500mm f/4 lens rental, I’ll have a chance to photograph these guys in better light.
I also got to see an interesting sight. With all the wildlife out and about, eventually a LOT of people started stopping their cars, hopping out with scopes and DSLRs, and the whole commotion give the coyotes good reason to head off back into the woods. The deer were a bit more alert for a while as well. In the commotion, I managed to get a shot of deer and canine passing each other, a somewhat rare scene (last photo in this gallery).
Nature Photography 
Wonderful light and setting on these!
Aye, the lighting was great that day! The deer are usually out JUST at sunset, so the light only lasts for a few minutes. They were out pretty early that day, and there were some great settings to shoot them in (lots of depth in the background, so I was able to blur it out nicely, too.)