Let’s Do It Again

“It was a splendid summer morning and it seemed as if nothing could go wrong.”
(John Cheever)

We were up again at the break of day and off to the nature preserve with hopes of another sighting of Old Buck.  The morning was just cool enough that everything was covered in dew and as the sun topped the trees under almost cloudless skies the ground fog swirled around inside the low-lying areas and across the meadow the pseudo-steam rose like a fairy’s smoke signals.  It was a dream, this small world so clear and bright and covered in diamonds; one of my most favorite dreams.

Such early sunshine usually means the deer have already headed for their daybeds.  I suspect this morning we would have had to walk the dusky shadows of dawn to see Old Buck, but to our great surprise and good fortune, one of his harem decided to cross the small prairie as we stood off at its eastern edge in silence.

Quite non-plussed by our presence was this beautiful doe, and she walked with unhurried deliberation and pride.  The stillness of the air did not allow her to catch our scent; as the camera shutters clicked furiously she merely looked dead-on at us in curiosity, occasionally twitching her nose and ears before deciding that the odd-looking, weren’t-there-yesterday trees near her path were nothing after all.  She was more concerned with the wanker old men and their dogs, who had shown up right before Mrs. Doe had decided to cross the prairie; but they were far enough behind us and my again pointing the camera at them sent them away soon enough that eventually Mrs. Doe paid them no attention, too.

At last, the beautiful girl meandered into the woods along the eastern part of the river and we headed over to walk along the river as it meandered the along the south and western sides of the preserve.  A toad, a mallard mother and her youngsters, dragonflies and damsel flies, squirrels, chipmunks, and a loud argument between members of a flock of blue jays were the small delights that accompanied us.  As we took a sit-down break on east bank of the river’s western course, we spotted a small, spotted fawn half-hidden in the brush above the bank.  By the time I raised Matilda and began to focus, someone living in one of the houses that borders the preserve’s peninsula where doe and fawn were walking apparently let out their dog, whose shrill barking sent both mother and baby quickly and silently back into the innermost, secret places and out of our view.

Disappointing to miss a shot of them getting a drink from the river, to be sure, however, there will soon enough be other mornings to spend in quiet watchfulness as the wee Bambi grows.