Came outside yesterday around midnight. Immediately, I heard a buck raking up a tree somewhere nearby, so I looked around and spotted a mulie (whitetails stay out of town) destroying the neighbour’s tree about 60 meters away. I took my phone out and recorded the sound (for a while I wanted to show a guy what raking sounds like). Then I thought to just walk towards the buck and spook him to save the tree, but he must have heard something on the other side and took off running about 40 yards and stopped. I kept watching, wondering if he would be coming back to it. Then, I saw what must have made him run - another buck. They walked towards each other and crossed their antlers. I thought it was interesting and wondered how close I can get before they take off. I walked to within 10 meters or so before they stopped and looked at me. I kept walking and only stopped when I was about 5 meters away. One of the bucks decided to take an even closer look and walked to me. He only stopped a couple of meters away from me when I said “What’s up?” because he made me feel a little uncomfortable with his confident walk (I do not have antlers to cross with him, lol).
It was midnight, he was
far from the largest mulie in Alberta, but... I could literally “pet” him if I stretched my arm out. We looked at each other for a minute and then they went back to their deer thing:
I watched for a few minutes from 5 meters away and went home. These are not “town” mule deer either, but a few bucks usually show up around this time of year.
Then there are a few mulies at the field where I parked a couple of dozens of times this season before walking down the valley. They used to run shortly after they saw my vehicle. Nowadays, they don’t even care. This one was no more than 15 meters away from me when I was passing by and he kept minding his business as if I was not even there:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=svA9D48CMBI
Usually, there is a mature “gooder” hangs out with that one, but he was not there that day. Neither runs anymore and usually just look at me go by. Must be my corduroy pants or a regular jacket I wear (I think that day it was just a black merino base layer with nothing on top).