Yesterday morning while I was outside watching the birds and sipping my first cup of coffee, I ended up with an unexpected visitor. There almost no sound, but a little bit of movement caught my eye. As I watched, a white tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) strolled through the brush. At first it didn’t notice me, and I sat totally still. But as alert as these guys are, it quickly spotted me and stopped. We both were still, looking at each other for what seemed like ages, but was probably just a few seconds. Then the deer turned its head, as if deciding what to do. At one point it even dropped its head as if to graze, but thought better of it. After a few minutes, it turned around and slowly, but quietly headed back into the trees. During the encounter I was assuming it was a little doe, but when I looked at the photos, I realized it was a buck. If you look carefully at the top of his head, you can see tiny little antler buds. It’s the time of year where the bucks have shed last years antlers and haven’t really started growing this years yet, so those little buds are all you see. The fact that you can see them at all, though, shows just how close he had gotten. Having animals like this around is one of the biggest reasons I love living here.