Deer and Coyotes

This is a story from 1 year ago. Our house is 1/4 mile down a gravel road behind our office. Last January I was driving my truck from the house to the office after lunch, so it was about 1:00 pm. As I topped the rise by the pond, located about half way between the office and the house, there was a deer standing in the middle of the pond, up to its chest in the water. There is a high spot out in the middle of this 1 acre pond. I stopped the truck, grabbed my camera from the back seat and changed the lenses to the zoom lens. The deer started moving out of the pond, and I started shooting photos, but the camera was on auto-focus so all of that group of photos was of the pine trees and limbs between me and the deer. So I figured that I missed that moment. Since I couldn't see any horns, I thought that it was a doe who was trying to escape an amorous buck or something.

As I drove on and got near the office, I looked back over my shoulder down a lane through the trees and brush, I saw a deer standing in the opening. Got the camera again, switched to manual focus and started taking shots. I could see the deer was moving back and forth in the opening, and I could see that there was more than one animal. I finally figured out that the other animal was a coyote and that they were sort of chasing each other around. You can see that the deer was all bristled up. After a couple of minutes, they left the opening heading back toward the pond. I got out of the truck with my camera and a pistol (in case I got a shot at the coyote) and started down to the opening.

To be continued...