|
Thought I was done posting about deer, but I came up on a herd of about 20 last night and may have learned something new. This was on the most heavily traveled section of my route - 2 lane black top but with nice wide lanes, broad paved shoulders and shallow ditches. I probably see an average of 6 or 7 semis and a couple-three cars/pickups on my nightly run on this 25 mile stretch. But hardly ever see deer. It was all does (perhaps a few last years male fawns?) with a single buck leading the harem. They were strung out for about 50 yards along the road - just off the paved shoulder but not actually down in the ditch. The buck was at the front of the line. They were headed the same direction I was traveling - away from corn fields and a copse of trees - toward a ranch with un-iced over watering tanks???
I slowed down to about 12-15 mph and tapped my horn once to be sure they knew I was there. I was surprised when they didn't scatter. A few scuttled a little further off the road, but most of the full grown does just craned their necks and looked ahead (to see what the buck was going to do?). When I first reached the point where I could see as far ahead as the buck, it was still walking forward, but looking back toward me. When I got to within about 30' of the buck. It turned and trotted out on to the highway - challenging me. At this point my car was already in the middle of the on-coming traffic lane. I steered even further to the left on to the paved shoulder, passed the buck and resumed speed ~45 mph.
It's been two or three weeks since I first noticed deer herding up. My guess is that the buck had very recently contested with another buck for control of the herd and hormones were rife. The does were all directly down wind of the buck. The breeze was about 5-8 mph.
|