Close Encounter of the Deer Kind

Posted by: Nate
Posted: Fri, August 21 2009 at 8:17am

I had an incredible encounter this week with a couple of deer.  I was out in the field checking on a property my company is working on.  I had walked down a near-vertical hillside down into a creek bottom and I was going to walk up the next steep hill to find a fence.  I decided instead that I’d go around the hill at the bottom and find the fence on the other side.  As I turned around I noticed a whitetail doe and fawn that had slipped in behind me.  I froze right where I was and did my best to remain motionless.

The doe knew that something wasn’t right so she looked, smelled, and tried her hardest to figure out what I was.  I was wearing a lot of green/brown clothing but my arms and face were exposed.  I held a walking stick in one hand and a camera tripod in the other.  I must have blended in well with the background because she had a heck of a time trying to figure me out. 

The doe began about 30 yards away but she closed the distance hesitantly over the course of 10 minutes, her fawn following closely behind.  She kept bobbing her head up and down looking at me from different angles and trying to get me to move.  The wind was perfect in my face for most of the time so I figured that she wouldn’t be able to smell me.  This little canyon I was in caused the wind to swirl a of couple times and I swore that she was going to catch my scent.  Inexplicably she didn’t smell me and she continued my way. 

As the doe got closer she got even edgier, bobbing her head incessantly, looking at me from all angles and sniffing the ground trying to smell my trail.  She stood where I had walked mere minutes before (with bug spray on my legs no less) and could not smell me.  I stood motionless; the only movement I gave away was blinking and breathing.  She crept closer yet, closing the distance to the point that I could look directly into her eyes.  She stood at 5 yards and tried to figure out just what I was.  For some reason just then I realized that I had been standing with death grip on my walking stick and my weight was shifted all onto one leg, which had fallen asleep.  I shifted slightly to remedy my problem and that slight movement prompted her to bolt.  She jumped over a branch that was six feet in height and ran about 40 yards away.  Her fawn had been feeding around me at 15 yards the entire time.  Since the fawn had not run she came back to check me out again. 

In that brief respite I took the opportunity to engage the standing mode on my C-Leg so I could stand more comfortably and properly allow my leg to stop tingling.  For the next ten minutes of scrutiny I was able to stand in a relaxed position easily without the pain I had experienced earlier. 

Before it was all over she had closed the distance to 4 yards (12 feet!) and had run off and come back four times.  I stood completely still for 20 minutes at least throughout this entire encounter and was completely exhausted.  Finally she’d had enough and the two of them ran up the hill behind me, white tails waving to announce my presence to the world. 

It was an incredible encounter that is just about the closest I’ve ever been to a live deer.  It was a great memory that I will always cherish.
I love my job.

Otto Bock HealthCare pays Nate a small fee for his essays.