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| Whitetail Buck In Velvet |
Here in southcentral Pennsylvania late May and early
June is an interesting time to be afield as the fawns are born and the
bucks grow velvet covered antlers.
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| Velvet Covered Antlers Grow Rapidly |
With that being said, it is not the easiest to see
either at this time. Most of the larger bucks are traveling in bachelor
groups and are seldom seen, but it makes for great photography when
they do appear.
Fawns are often seen soon after birth,
but then they are seldom seen for a few weeks as the doe hides them in
the woods or tall grass and leaves them while she feeds elsewhere.
Sometimes fawns will come into the meadows after them, but this is not
commonplace until they are a few weeks old and it is sometime in July or
August before the fawns are almost always with the does. I have seen
fawns as early as mid-May, but it was the 24th this year before I saw
the first one. I was driving a back road and saw a doe and fawn cross
the road. I got off a few quick frames with the still camera and then
set the video camera up and got much better material with it.
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| First Fawn |
I got the first good still photos of a doe nursing a
fawn this year on the evening of May 29th when a fawn stood up from the
edge of a meadow where it was hiding in the grass and began feeding.
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| Doe and Fawn Nursing |
The mating season of the Eastern Wild Turkey is
really winding down by the end of May and one seldom sees them strutting
by mid-June. Now it is more common to see them feeding or moving
through the countryside.
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| Mature Eastern Wild Turkey Gobbler |
I seldom see rattlesnakes in this area, but I have
probably seen more in late May and early June than at any other time.
This year I photographed one that was hanging out at an old back country
barn over a period of two days. In the first instance he was lying on a
pile of posts outside the barn while in the second he was lying on the
barn floor and peering out of a hole in the siding of the barn. The 5D
MK III with 100-400mm IS II was used for the first two photos, while the
7D MK II and 600mm F4 was used for the last one.
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| Eastern Timber Rattle Snake: Coiled For Action |
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| Eastern Timber Rattle Snake Peers From Barn |
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| Eastern Timber Rattle Snake |
While opportunities such as the
rattlesnake encounter are always welcome, most of my spring and summer
photography is of whitetail deer, wild turkeys and Pennsylvania elk.and I
look forward to filming and photographing them as summer nears.
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| Pregnant Whitetail Doe |
Originally published at
Pennsylvania Wildlife Photographer by Willard Hill.
