Peek-a-boo

When I came across ghostly Indian Pipe featured a few days ago I was actually looking for deer because about 50% of the times I visit Fort Rodd Hill I see a deer (sometimes two) on the road. Usually my camera bag is safely locked up in the luggage carrier on the back of my scooter. This time I decided to stop before seeing a deer, get my camera out, set it up properly and put it around my neck so that when I spied a deer I would be ready. Here are the results of that planning. Though these deer are wild, they are quite tame and will tolerate you if you don't move around too much or approach too closely. Fort Rodd Hill has some quite large areas of forest and is adjacent to Esquimalt Lagoon and the Royal Roads University Campus, which also have large contiguous areas of forest so it is not surprising to see deer there. Similarly for a beautiful young buck I saw a few weeks ago in Mount Douglas Park, another fairly expansive area. The most surprising deer I've seen in the city though was one I saw along the railway tracks here in Victoria West, pictured here, and more recently one I saw in Highrock Park, which is a very small park in a densely populated residential area. Yet no matter where I see one of these graceful creatures it's always a treat. This is a young Blacktail Deer.