Salt Lick Success!

....Or maybe I just need to look out the window more often.

So, yesterday was pretty freakin' awesome for this animal lover! If you've followed this blog for a while, you know that I love seeing animals, and have been waiting to see deer here in North Carolina even since we moved here almost 7 months ago and our neighbors told us there are lots of deer around.

Well, I saw deer in our backyard for the 2nd time, and this time I got pictures! I was washing my dishes after eating lunch, when I happened to glance out the kitchen window that looks out on our backyard, when I spotted her. I loudly whispered "DEER!" to my husband in the other room, and started jumping up and down and racing around to find my camera, just like I did two weeks ago.

But this time I was smarter, instead of going out on the deck and scaring her away, I ran downstairs to the sliding doors under the deck, so I could snap some photos without having to go outside. (And it was actually kind of funny, on my new Fitbit fitness tracker, I could see an activity spike when I was dashing around, freaking out about the deer!)

Come on, you know you want some salt lick, it's good for you!

Mmmm, salt flavored dirt!

After about 10 minutes though, I decided to try to sneak out on the deck again, for a closer look, and sure enough, she ran off into the small patch of woods behind our house.

But then I started wondering, if she came out in the middle of the day, maybe she would be back, since in my experience seeing deer growing up, they mainly came out around dusk, so I decided to bring my laptop into the basement room where I took the above photos, so I could work in there for the afternoon, and watch for the deer to come back at the same time.

(A side note, since I mentioned my "experience" seeing deer growing up. In case any of you were curious about what's up with my obsession with deer (other than the fact that they're adorable, magical creatures that I've loved since seeing Bambi as a child). Well, as a kid we used to go to North Eastern Washington State quite often, to visit my great great aunt and uncle at their home in a tiny little town with a population of about 100. In the evenings we used to go on what we called "deer rides," where we would all pile in the car and drive up in the hills on old forest service roads. Bumping around the dirt roads, we would spot a ton of adorable deer, and also other fun things like rattlesnakes, and we even saw black bears and a moose once. "Deer rides" are one of my fondest memories of visiting my great great aunt and uncle, along with spring, when so many baby frogs would come out of their holes that you had to watch where you stepped to avoid them. Yep, baby frogs were another animal obsession of mine, and in 2nd grade I even got to take two home with me, and they became the classroom pets!)

But anyway, back to the present day deer.

I camped out in the other room for a couple of hours, working away yesterday afternoon, and to my excitement, the deer came back! Of course, I was ready with my camera, even though I hadn't had high hopes she would be back.

So pretty! And noticing me on the other side of the sliding doors.

Yum, more salt!

But after only a minute or two, something scared her away, and she dashed back into the trees.

Although now that it was later in the day without as much sun shining through the trees, I could see further into the woods, and spotted her hanging out not to far into the trees.

It didn't take me long to figure out what had made the noise that had caused her to run away again. Another, smaller deer appeared to the left of the yard!

And then I noticed a second new deer creeping out of the trees, in the bottom right of the below picture!

Three deer in total, counting the original one that you can just see the rump of, furthest to the right in the photo below.

I think it's the same three deer I saw two weeks ago, because it's still a bigger female, and two smaller juveniles. The mama is the one who had been eating the salt earlier in the day.

The deer family started munching away at our grass and weeds, and stayed in our yard for at least 45 minutes. Which leads me to believe that maybe they've been there all along, we just haven't looked out our windows often enough. After all, we spend all day in our home offices, both of which face the front of our house. How many afternoons have I missed this while in the other room, staring at my monitors?!

Yes, I may have taken over 400 photos throughout the deer visit!

They were so fun to watch though, although they were very quick to startle at any noise. They constantly looked up from eating, and would sometimes do this funny stomping thing with their front legs. I'm not sure if it was a sign of aggression directed to whatever noise they heard, or a way of warning each other to watch out for something.

Apparently they also liked to stick their tongues out at whatever they heard.

LOL, just kidding, I think this was just a lucky shot!

A few more photos of them being our gardeners and eating our weeds.

After the deer went back into the woods after about 45 minutes on our lawn, one of my cats came out after a while, and just sat down and kept an eye on the woods. After peering in the same direction as he was for a bit, I finally spotted what he was looking at.

The deer were still hanging out nearby.

My cat's nonchalant attitude, and the fact that the deer stayed around for so long eating grass is just another reason I think these deer have been frequent visitors to our yard. I just need to look out the windows more often.

Or better yet, maybe I should move my home office into the other room that faces the woods....looking at deer while working would be a whole lot more interesting than seeing the mailman go by like I get to see now!