Bachelor #1

Out at sunrise at the local nature preserve to see if the rut is progressing. Foggy morning kept the light low. First of many foggy mornings I'm sure. We had our 2nd rain of the season on Wed. and the grasses are really greening up and growing. That will keep the deer pretty close to the preserve now and will allow them to fatten up. I encountered a number of bucks this morning and thought I'd take you through what I saw in sequence and using the old "Dating Game" format to introduce them. This guy was #1. All by himself. He's a young buck, probably a yearling and probably his first set of antlers. He's sort of a paradox to me. His antlers are not very well developed, even for a yearling, which normally means an inadequate diet. But his body is good size and well filled out. He's in great shape. Maybe it's a genetic thing. But nevertheless, being the new, young guy he probably won't get to breed any of the does this fall. So maybe he's just enjoying the time by himself. I played some with the color balance on this as it's pretty desaturated but even though adding some temp. made it more pleasing, it wasn't what I saw, so left it as is. The photo is full frame and I did nothing to it other than a bit of sharpening. Comments and critiques encouraged and appreciated.

Tech Info

Canon 60D with 70-200mm f/4L @ 117mm and 1.4 TC
1/40th at f/6.3 and ISO 1000
tripod