I know that there are deer at Huntley Meadows Park, the suburban marshland park where I take many of my photos, but I rarely see any of them. Perhaps they too see the posted signs warning of archery hunting to keep the population in control.
Saturday morning, however, I spotted three White-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) in an open area in front of a stand of cattails. The deer grazed for a little while before fading silently back into the forest and I managed to get a few shots of them.
It’s a nice change of pace to get some shots of mammals at a time of the year when so many of my postings are devoted to insects.
Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Mike Powell 
I love deer. They are such elegant creatures and their eyes are so dark and soulful. We had deer in our garden for the first time since moving to America. We see them around a lot so I’m surprised it’s taken this long. The kids and I all spilled out into the garden in our pajamas to see them. They were white-tailed deer too.
Back home where we used to live in Scotland, there were deer all over the place. There was one particular stag who seemed to like resting right at the side of the road. Amazingly he was never hit.
As I was taking the photos, I heard a mother telling her young children how rare it was to see deer in the wild. They were used to seeing them in their suburban neighborhood, where, alas, deer are too often hit by cars. It is recognized that the deer population is too large and different jurisdictions use different methods to try to control the number of deer. I definitely agree with your description of the deer–elegant and soulful.
I’m surprised by how few dead deer I have seen for just that reason. Used to only seeing deer in a rural, wild setting, it was quite bizarre to see a pretty sizeable herd at our local Toys R Us here. I guess one of the issues with our suburb is that the surrounding area includes woodland and farmland so it’s easy for the deer to wander into more built-up areas.
Nice shots Mike. I see deer occasionally, usually when I don’t have my camera with me.