The TV was off, the window was on

We live near a pocket of woods, and so can get a decent showing of wildlife in the yard, sometimes.  We’ve had blackbirds, common grackles, robins, flickers, a downy woodpecker, a mated pair of blue jays, a family of cardinals, a lot of sparrows, chickadees, and slate-colored juncos, the occasional nuthatch, and once, a wild turkey.  I’m probably forgetting something, but those are the ones I can think of that I’ve been lucky enough to catch.  There are garter snakes, and one year, a leopard frog.  There is plenty of insect life, of course, although in rather few cases am I happy to run into that.  We also get the usual squirrels, chipmunks and wild mice, a family of groundhogs, a lot of wild rabbits, and then….the deer.

There’s a family of white-tail deer that live in those woods.  Over the years, it has grown.  Assuming that I saw all the resident deer tonight, we’re up to four does, two juveniles, and the buck.

Everyone but the buck was taking turns sticking their tongue into our bird feeder.  It was too dark at the fringes of the yard to catch a shot of them actually jumping our fence, but I nabbed them right in front of our back door/window, noshing away on seeds and snow.

Ash watches the deer in the yard, appreciating that they are less skittish than the birds tend to be.

One deer kisses our statue of St.Francis.

"Yeah, whatever. We've figured out that there's glass there. You can't stop us."

One deer sticks its tongue into a feeding port. Up to two other deer at a time, nom on the snow under the feeder, where seeds fall OFF of the tongue of the deer AT the feeder.

This was the last one to leave with the others, and run back to the woods. It was getting too dark to see them well, anyway.

Oh, deer.  I fear your ticks.  I’m annoyed by your insistence on trying to eat my roses and lilies.  Your presence leads to an awful lot of baying on the part of our neighbor’s hound dogs.  And, really, I’m thinking that the birds are going to hold a grudge, soon.  You’re awfully pretty, though.

EDIT: I got more photos, a couple of months later!