Time: 5:30am.
Place: Quail Lake
Incident: Deer fight

Prescilla & I were taking our early morning walk today when we saw a small buck crossing the road towards us. We kept an eye on him as he crossed, not wanting to be in his way when he jumped the concrete barriers that separated the road from the park. We watched him as best we could in the dim light as he hopped over and ran into the brush around the lake. As we rounded the bend, we saw that he was not alone - there were 2 other bucks that were huge and a smallish doe hiding in a bush with only her head sticking out. The boys were fighting over her, letting out scary mooing sounds while they circled each other. The largest one even hissed!

We stopped dead in our tracks, not wanting to intrude on this fight. All I could think of was the Fox special When Animals Attack where the deer attacked a man while his wife taped the incident. I didn't want to get gored, kicked, bit or trampled. When they started circling again, their eyes locked on each other, we made a break for it and walked as fast as we could past the fight. I kept watching them as we passed to make sure they weren't going to charge. Suddenly the biggest one looked right at me!!

Crap! Was eye contact a deer sign for a challenge?? I couldn't fight a deer - I had no antlers to defend myself with!!

Luckily, the buck turned his attention once more towards his rival. A few feet away, on the other side of the path, were 2 does, peacefully munching away on grass. I told Prescilla that they needed to head over to the other side as it would even out the buck/doe ratio and maybe stop the fight.

We made it back to work alive and un-gored. Thank God!! Hope you all are having a wonderful weekend!

Labels: animals

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