Fall deer

Our street - no deer in this photo

Jack and I went out this morning, as we do every morning, around 6:45, for our walk. Today it was misty and obscured. We walk north on the street, round the curve and then up a low rise. Jack likes to sniff the low branches that verge on the street.

When we climbed up the rise, we were overlooking a steep, falling away oak grove down the hillside. Down there, this morning, we looked and there were two young buck deer, dueling, head to head.

They looked like two boys on a playground, shoving one another fitfully, a little half-heartedly, like waiting for a teacher to separate them. Their heads butted together. I could hear their antlers clashing, a high, brittle clatter, like hard plastic. They pushed, butted, came apart, and then butted once again, antlers clacking.

Jack put his front paws atop the asphalt berm bordering the street, and looked down at them, and perhaps something - his breath, his animal energy - alerted them. The two bucks stopped dueling and turned their heads our way, and then they froze.

They stared at us, their big ears flaring, totally still. Then, instantly, they turned and bolted in opposite directions into the woods.