We’ve got plenty of the roe deer around here but they’re really shy, so I can just forget about approaching them in full sight, they’ll be long gone before I get to photographing distance. I’ve only really had one reasonably good opportunity to photograph them, that was over two years ago. Since then I’ve of course seen roe deer a-plenty, but never right for the camera. That is, until today. I was watching tv when I saw a roe deer buck approach my bird feeding site. I’ve seen a lot of deer tracks around it so I know they like to stop by and eat the seeds, so I quickly grabbed the camera and mounted the 300mm lens and then carefully opened the window. And oh joy, the buck didn’t mind! It knew I was there because it reacted to the sound of the shutter, but it obviously didn’t mind it and kept eating.
And then… another buck came by! I could not believe my luck. It was so close that a head shot was all I could do, EXIF says that the subject distance is 7.65 m. And it was all possible because I was shooting from my living room and the animals were approaching me, not the other way around.
The bucks soon got female company but this is of course not the mating season for roe deer, so nothing much happened. In fact, they just settled down to sleep but unfortunately a bit further out so that photography got complicated. I can still see them though, just by reaching out a little bit from my chair as I type this.
I’m just so happy that the roe deer finally gave me this opportunity, I’ve waited for five years!