A young white-tailed deer fawn. He clearly wanted mom, given how he kept looking around and bleating for her.

Ever since I got my first SLR camera 15 years ago, I’d say 98% of the photos I’ve taken have been of birds.  When I go birding, as I did this afternoon, I have binoculars and camera in hand, and birds on my mind.  On rare occasions, I’ll note some spectacular landscape and take a photo, but it has to be pretty spectacular! After all, if I want to shoot a landscape, I have to change lenses…WAY too much trouble for a bird photographer!  One of the fringe benefits of going out birding though IS running into unexpected sights, be it a beautiful landscape or some creature that happens to cross your path. If I get a good opportunity to shoot an animal other than a bird, I will generally do it, unless it’s something really common.  I usually don’t give a second thought to all the deer I run across, given how common they are.  But today was something different.

As I turned on a gravel road, there on the side of the road in front of me was a tiny, spotted White-tailed Deer fawn.  With all the deer I’ve seen, it’s not often I see young fawns, and I had absolutely no photos of them until today.  When I turned the corner, he looked at me and gave a little bleat.  I got the camera in hand, fully expecting him to run before I could get a photo, but…he just stood there, and gave another bleat.  I took a number of photos while he looked around, occasionally bleating, but he didn’t move more than a few steps.

I’m sure he was calling for mom, but despite watching the little guy/gal for 15 minutes or so, I never saw the mother deer.  He slowly meandered off into a grassy area before laying down, although I could still occasionally hear him bleating from his now hidden location.

It’s tough out there for a little guy! As I drove away I couldn’t help but feel a little worried about him, hoping his mom came back soon.