I had a whole family of roe deer pass by the house today while I was at home and I actually managed to get some pictures and managed to mess them up pretty good, too – I had somehow left the camera on +1 EV while metering from the animals in the dark forest. Talk about hot snow… Anyway, it wasn’t a good opportunity anyway so I’m not disappointed, but what really has me distraught is what I discovered when I was viewing the images in full resolution.

The thing is that I use metal wires to attach some of the bird and squirrel food. In the autumn when I set up everything, I had a few wires over so I wrapped them around a branch in case I would need to re-arrange things. Since it’s metal, I didn’t think there was any risk the wires would come loose but what I didn’t count for was the snow cover, rising and rising… until it was level with the branch the wires are attached to. Since this is the bird feeding place, there’s always some seeds on the ground and the roe deer stop to check if there’s anything left over for them. And so it must have happened, one of the deer had managed to get his antlers inside the wire loop and pulled it off when he raised his head.

I feel horrible. This is just the kind of thing I rant about when other people do it. My only consolation is that the wire doesn’t seem to be stuck in any bad manner so it will hopefully drop off soon.

Needless to say that I won’t be leaving any spare wires out ever again!