Deer behind our house. March 20, 2009.
Betsy and I have become accustomed to seeing deer on the golf course behind our house. They usually come by in the late afternoon, and although they have enjoyed a few bites while we watched them, they are usually quite skittish and will quickly run off if golfers come by or dogs start barking.
But yesterday we saw six deer who behaved very differently. They came down the fairway (nothing unusual about that) and started grazing behind the house. After a few minutes they all looked up and stared at the tees further down the hill. Two golfers had driven up to the tee in their cart and were preparing to tee off. We expected the deer to take off, but they just stood there watching . The golfers teed off (without hitting any of the deer) and slowly drove past them.
The deer went back to grazing and then the smallest deer laid down on the fairway. That was definitely different from anything we had seen before. After a few minutes another one laid down. Now we were really intrigued!
After a while a neighbor’s dog started barking, but instead of running off into the woods the deer moved closer to the tee. Soon all of them were lying down. I’m not sure how long they rested, but after a while they got up one by one. Shortly afterward they disappeared into the woods.
As I said, we’ve never seen deer act like that before. Maybe they knew the golfers were through for the day. Or maybe they just thought they owned the golf course. In either case I’m glad I could get the pictures above. The collage can be enlarged by clicking on it.
Senior Moments 