How to photograph a deer

Firstly, you need a neighbour/friend to come to your door saying that she drove behind a deer, who walked along your dead end road, that is a peninsula. You know you have a good chance of spotting it!

This after driving all over God's delightful creation, up through Port Carling, up through Aspdin, Algonquin Park, through the winter deer yards looking for the dang things for a photo-op.
I think they need to talk to Tony Clement our in-your-face MP who twitters, and seems to understand this danged photo-op construct.

One must balance the mistakes with the forethought, born of previous mistakes, and notes-to-self...

#1 Note-to-self (NTS) heeded: put on bug spray.

NTS#2  heeded, took off the bear bell that I use when walking through the woods. One must act like a human to avoid acting like a bear and drawing bear attention. There weren't many bears in the wood in the rain with the bugs.

NTS#3 I put on a long-sleeved (Muskoka) sweat-shirt, and long pants and boots. No socks —Mistake #1. Blisters ensued. Grabbed both the videocam and digital camera, with a back-pack and the zoom lens. Good move.

Mistake #2: The camera battery was less than fully charged...

Mistake #3: no hat. Water dripped in hair, onto glasses, with the physical effort of delicately stepping to avoid breaking twigs to sneak up on said deer, my glasses fogged up and I couldn't adjust the camera settings to account for the darkness of the forest and the zoom lens. Good thing I am an amateur!

Mistake #4: after sneaking up downwind of said deer, the little thing stood up and began to walk towards me. After all that friggin' tip toeing and ignoring mosquitoes biting my hands while taking the video footage he thought I was his buddy. Holy Liftin' Spappers.

The poor thing has some sort of a wound. I hope he is OK.

I managed to take a lot of photos and the camera didn't konk out. Praise be. The video footage is a bit jerky, since I was quietly trying to swat at the bugs while trying to video. My Lordy the things I do for nature .

With great excitement I donned long-sleeves, pants and grabbed my cameras. I sprayed bug spray on neck and forehead, but forgot my hat. It was raining and this lovely wee buck was reportedly in our forest. The mosquitoes were horrible, you can hear them buzzing on the videotape. I came back bitten, drenched and blissfully happy.

I took my hubby back and the deer was sitting in the same spot. I was so careful to walk downwind, and stepped carefully, avoiding cracking twigs, then he heard and saw me after I had hidden behind trees to get a closer look.  Good adventure.