3/28/15 Observation

       I was finally able to get out into the woods again for the first time in nearly a month. Just walking around on the farm while the sun rose on the eastern horizon seemed like it would be a great stress reliever . Just after getting out of the car I was startled by a pheasant that burst out of the brush next to me. As I crossed the cornfield approaching the timber I spotted a deer feeding in the open. When I was about 100 yards from the deer I heard a crashing and I looked over at where the deer had been. Two other deer had been with it and they were high tailing it to the next county. 10 yards in front of me I noticed a hawk flying up from the ground to a nearby branch. This much activity in the first few minutes, I knew it had to be a good day. I walked part of the way down a hill in an opening in the woods and found a good root system to sit on as I leaned against a tree (it's no fun being out there if you are constantly uncomfortable). I was hoping to run into some turkeys today I never heard any come out of their roost so I assumed I would not be seeing any in this area in the near future. I looked at my watch, 7:30, I decided 30 more minutes in this spot would be adequate. I listened to the owls, birds, and squirrels as they discussed the beautiful morning. At 7:50 I was thinking about taking a nap when I heard leaves crackling to my left. I got my camera and binoculars ready to try to figure out what it was. After a while I thought it was a squirrel but then I caught a glimpse of the animals ears. A deer. I got my camera out and tried to make out the body of the deer through the trees. At one point I was sure I was making eye contact with the deer and that would be the end of the encounter. After a few moments the deer kept moving towards me. I quickly realized that the deer was a button buck, only about 10-11 months old and that his mother was following right behind him. They just kept walking towards me on some game path and before long they were within 20 yards of me. I was constantly trying to take pictures while not attracting attention. They soon noticed something was wrong but the deer could not quite figure out what. First, the button buck started circling right in front of me trying to get down wind of me to figure out what I was. At times the young deer was well within 10 yards of me. After a little while he became spooked and ran back down past the doe. The doe decided that she also wanted to figure out what I was. She took the same route as the other. At times I actually became nervous because she would be six yards away and come walking directly at me stomping her feet. While I was taking a video she also became spooked and ran off the way she had come. When she settled down I heard her snorting to alert everyone else that some sort of danger was in the area. After hearing that, I decided that would be enough for this location. 

        As I walked away from my sitting spot I made up my mind that I was going to check out the surrounding hills with my binoculars to search for turkeys. As I made it back to the top of one of the big hills I looked for quite along ways in many directions. After a while I spotted a tom in full strut about a mile away with a couple other turkeys but that was it for this side of the hill. I went over to the other side of the farm across the road and checked for the same thing. As I reached one of the ridges I saw several dots on a hill across the river, a long ways away. Sure enough it was a flock of 9 turkeys making their way across the field. I went a little bit further when I noticed a couple more turkeys on the river bank, when I looked through the binoculars I counted 4 birds, one of which was also in full strut. When I reached the top of the small hill I looked down between to draws of timber and just across the fence line was a flock of feeding turkeys. I counted 25 of them in that flock alone. I'm excited to see if I can get any closer to them. I think that Monday morning I will go down and try to figure out where they are coming from. On my way back home I decided to take the gravel road that I would usually take to get to the farm. Right now the farm is not accessible by this road, but I still wanted to head down there to see what I could see. Often times we will see deer and turkeys along the road. Also, you can see parts of the farm and I wanted to see if I could see any turkeys on the farm from that angle. When I was coming back towards the main road I nearly hit 7 deer that flew out of the woods and across the road. I also spotted another flock of 20 turkeys. What a day! Once again the unexpected has occurred while I've been out in the woods. That is what keeps me going back.

Check out my pictures corresponding to this post. The post will be labeled "3/28/15 Observation Pictures".