Afternoon visit from deer in the 'hood

In previous posts here, I think I've alluded to how my new home in Raleigh is situated in a modest rural neighborhood and, most importantly, flanked on two of its sides by wooded areas. So it is not uncommon Lee Ann and I will observe out yard (and, gulp, garages) visited by an assortment of creatures.

There are some of the most obvious -- squirrels, for instance. But we have also come across toads, frogs, snakes, opossum, rabbits, cardinals, hawks, a few stray cats and deer.

Of the latter group, we see hawks and deer most often. The deer, especially, get bold enough to come onto our property to forage when temperature plummet, even though by now they must know there are humans in the house (or at least near the house) on the property. We've unintentionally scared them off from grazing on our grass or bushes when we'd open a door to go outside. Of course, we wouldn't know they had been there until the door is open and we step foot outdoors.

Most of the time, the deer don't visit until very early morning -- dawn -- or late in the afternoon, as it gets dark. But earlier this week, two deer really got bold and elected to graze in our backyard during the middle of the day. So I grabbed my phone camera (and later, my Canon 6D) and shot away through door windows in our living room. These pictures show the deer near the stairs on our deck, along the fence we put up to protect our raised garden beds (to protect against these deer and rabbits, to be precise), in front our puppy memorial garden and next to the modest playground area we developed for the grandchildren to enjoy when they visit.

Most of the time, the deer were foraging; those didn't seem like very interesting pictures. So I present those when they attention was diverted by sound and/or movement. Most of the movements were probably me they might have detected on the other side of the window. But at one of these "at attention" photos -- the two of them near the fence -- was in reaction to a car starting in a neighbor's yard. They spent a good minute or so fixing their gaze in that direction before being satisfied they could return to grazing.

As always, if you want to pull up a larger and sharper version of an image, simply click on the image. This is particularly helpful if you access the blog using a mobile device. If you want to see the full gallery of images and a short video clip, click on the link in this sentence.