A friendly charge

This experience got the ticker revvin' a bit. After spending some time on the beach with the semipalmated plovers, I decided to head back to the car. As I walked down the east side of the dune, I found a lovely female deer who curiously watched me but decided not to run right away. By this time, I had already put away my tripod, so I decided to pull it back out and see if she'd stay around for a bit. Well, to my luck she did and as I made my way down to the junction of the beach access trail and the side trail that goes down the estero, I noticed this gorgeous buck who was likely checking me out for a while.



I felt a bit nervous to be lined up in his 6-point sights, but he seemed content just to sniff the air in my direction. Conveniently, I was standing right in front of a bench, so I figured I would sit down, set up the tripod, and see what happens -- it seemed to make more sense than continuing back towards the car, which was in the same direction that the doe had gone.



After he posed for a few shots, the doe had wandered further off and he had a decision to make. What he chose, was to run straight at me!



Now, he didn't do this in a threatening manner, but all I could picture was some of those "when animals attack" videos I saw when I was younger....



And I started to wonder just a little, if I made the right decision of not heading back to the beach



Thankfully, after getting my adrenaline flowing and before I had to dive under the bench, he veered off the path and into the bushes -- but first stopping to give me this perfect pose.