....spent a week away chasing deer and hogs, normally the top day temps would be 20 or so C and below 10C over night. That damn week was over 30C each day and only down to 17-20C over night. property is also in the grip of drought. Hunting all week and didn't fire a shot, not because I didn't see anything, just no buck that was large enough and no meat as it was too hot to be fugging around with. Saw one big boar (and a bunch of little hogs) but he was motoring and when I did have him lined up has was skylining back toward my camp. Cunning prick..!! A few pics... A small buck, silly bugger, all about the girls at this point.... I was climbing a steep section and stopped to breathe (read gasping for air and bent over at the waist)...there right between my legs.... ....scared the crap out of me as I thought it was a WHOLE Brown Snake..! ...turns out it is a shed from a Black Snake. A couple of hogs I shot up here in a flying visit in late February.... you can see how dry it was then !! About 4 inches of rain fell between them and this visit but still not enough to get it right !! I have a few more pics and some video I have to copy off the laptop I travel with. I will get to that soon.... Rest of the pics.... Due to the weather there was perhaps a bit to much of this... The next two are taken from the same spot just 90 degs apart, sitting over a rutting stand to see what the dominant buck looks like... .... he was actually a nice buck that someone would be happy with, he was busy chasing away smaller bucks and I was too busy watching him to take pics of it all unfolding...LOL Late one afternoon looking up where I was the day before (that high point opposite). The snake and buck above where not far from the top there... And the view further down the valley from up there... I will try and work on the videos today.
I like that picture. Are they common? Is there a season for them? Are they always black? What size do they get? Do they have a name like "white tail" here in the states?
..... that is a Black Fallow. There are also Menil Fallow (lighter with spots), Common Fallow (Mousy coloured) and some will say "Hungarian" in reality the Hungarian are a very pure line of Common Fallow and appear a ginger or reddish colour. Fallow Season runs March to July I think (no bag limits tags etc, they are considered a pest species). We also have Red Deer, Chital (Axis), Samber, Hog, Rusa, Wapiti and if you know where to look a few lesser known species and exotics.
Really pretty country, Andy. I assume that is in Australia but what region or township might that be?
....so my editing software is crap...anyway...here is one of the videos I made while away. This is the same young buck in the first pic of this thread. Sorry it is all a bit crappy, this is the first time I have really tried to use the V1 as a motion camera. The deer are aware "something" is nearby and just where. Around the 50 second mark he started playing peek-a-boo with me then at 55 throws his nose to the air properly (and looks quite strange doing so ). Just above me were at least two more bucks (including a very nice head) that were grunting up a storm. This also kept this guy on edge. A little down from me in the gully between us is a big patch of Blackberry, of course this was sheltering several hogs including the one large boar I mentioned. He of course chose the time when I was transitioning the camera back into my pack to bolt.