Frozen!

The past week has brought some intemperate weather.  Brutal cold temperatures.  I never cease to be amazed at how wildlife cope with the extremes of heat and cold.  I think these might be some of the coldest deer around these parts...

Girlfriend

Girlfriend is getting along splendidly following here knee replacement last summer.

There is nothing more fun than winter if you are a Labrador retriever.  Snow to run through.  Snow to jump through.  Snow to eat.  And no risk of overheating.

One of the trail cameras caught some nice action imagery of the black Lab cavorting to her heart's delight...

Deer Herd

For any of you that read my ramblings here at the platz you know that I believe the deer herd has grown unreasonably large around here.  Don't get me wrong - I like seeing deer as much as anybody else does but there comes a point were the health of the herd can suffer when deer numbers grow beyond the carrying capacity of the land that they call home.

As evidence of this we killed six deer on our property this year.  Check out this picture.

If you look carefully there are seven deer in that photo.

Yikes!

Food Plots

The food plots are still doing their thing.

Even though they're covered in eight or more inches of snow pack the critters (deer mostly) have been scratching and pawing the snow away to reach the succulent green stuff that hides beneath the snow.

Even the dogs will dig around in the plots.  Mostly because there's some other critter's scat in there to find...

Frozen Treat

The girls and I were out the other day making our trail camera circuit.  Me on snowshoes and them running about.

Girlfriend found an extra special prize.  And I had a heckuva time getting her to give it up.  A frozen head from a rabbit!

Some other critter had killed and eaten the rabbit leaving only the head.  I stuck the head in the crotch of branches in a tree along the trail.  Sort of like a voodoo talisman to send a message to whoever is wandering the woods.

Night Vision

The snow is still deep and the deer are still moving about. 

The last batch of trail camera pictures were split roughly 70/30 between night and daylight observations.

Here are some night shots...

 

Alarm!

Another nice sequence of pictures taken in burst mode showing the graceful moves of a deer fleeing from something...