Last weekend I moved the game cam to another feeder, because no good bucks were feeding there, lots of doe and spikes, but no good bucks.  The move was rewarding because right away, good bucks started showing up.  It started on the morning of the 21st when a wide 6 pointer with small brow tines posed for a “shot”.  With him was a small 6 and a spike.  Shortly after that, a big spike showed up, he’s been “shot” at the other feeder too.
    

The next morning another wide 6 with long brow tines, two other deer and a cottontail posed.  Twenty minutes later a 7, a 6 and two others were feeding.
    
Not 10 minutes later, bingo, up walked up a real good 8 pointer, from his “falling” chest, he’s probably 5-1/2 years old.  With him were two 6’s and as the big 8 was leaving, he posed for this “shot”.
     
Friday morning I swapped memory cards and the only “shot” on it were these 4 dove.

We’re still mired in our drought, in fact the whole southwest of our country is.  Racks on our bucks aren’t well developed, on my place, one 8 pointer and a 9 have good spreads, with some mass, but the palmated 8 in my post, “[The Water Trough], September 15, 2011” is the best buck seen to date.

A softball friend living in an upscale area near Austin, Texas, sent me these “shots” from his back yard game camera.  Stop and think, these “shots” are taken within 10 miles of our State capitol, a major metropolitan area!   The first is of a dog (male) coyote, a big one and the second is of a coon, almost as big as the coyote.
    
Two weeks later, what looks to be a bitch (female) coyote showed up at his water bucket.

Nine days later, a nice 8 pointer showed up, then a different coyote, smaller and probably a female showed itself.
    
Randy Pfaff, Pastor of the Crossroads Cowboy Church in southern Colorado sent me these 2 pictures, one of 2 mule deer, bucks, both in velvet and the other of one of his friends smiling and sporting a nice big horn ram!  I’d smile too!

Beside big bucks, a lot of other animals and birds came up and used the water trough. Early in the morning of the 8th, 2 gray foxes used the facilities.

Then on the afternoon of the 8th a squirrel and a doe came to water, followed later that evening, by 2, six point bucks, but it’s hard to tell if they’re still in velvet.
    
On the afternoon of the 9th a 7 appeared, probably 3 or 4 years old, still in velvet, scraggly, but may be good next year if we break this drought!  The results of this drought are apparent with this 8, he came in early in the evening of the 9th, one side is good and the other is squshed up, both of these deer show vivid results of the extended drought!
    
On the morning of the 12th, a spike and a doe come in to water and our roadrunner made an appearance too!

Then, the most unusual “shots” show a sharp shinned hawk (I believe) taking a bath, but the unusual part is the second “shot” after it had flown across the water trough, got all of its feathers wet and was drying off.

During the past week, some new, big deer moved into the area.  The first to show was this hefty, 9 pointer, a nice deer with a fine rack even though we’re in a crippling drought, probably 5 or 6 years old!
          
Then a portly 8 showed up.  This is probably the same one as in my post of [August 20th], “The Water Trough”.  He hasn’t been around for a while, but it looks like his other source of water dried up.

On the 10th, here’s the big 9 walking up while a spotted fawn gets a drink.

Then, early in the morning of the 11th, this 7 or 8 came up.  This is a new deer, it appears to have a palmated rack on both sides and hasn’t been around before, but he’s showing his age, a nice little pot belly and his back is beginning to get a “sway” in it.

Then on the morning of the 12th, this 7 or 8 came in to water.  He’s a different one from the palmated buck. His rack on the right is a little squshed in, obviously a victim of the protracted drought and from his position at the trough, it’s hard to get a count on it.

After almost 2 months of taking “shots” of the bucks using the water trough, the period of September 1st through the 5th helped me to categorize them much better. There is one buck that’s real good, the 8 pointer, however there are several more that have 6 or 7 points that are acceptable, considering the drought conditions that we are under.

In the early morning of the 1st, it was only fitting that the big 8 showed up for a drink and along with him was a young 6.

That evening another 6 and a young 10 appeared, then minutes later two 7’s showed up.
     
Now it’s starting to get interesting because on the evening of the 2nd, here came 6 big deer, a 7, a wide 6, one that is undeterminable, a spike and two doe and I believe all of these deer are different, maybe the 7 is the same as earlier.  The next night, up came two different bucks a 6 with one crooked horn and probably a 7.  Both of these bucks are shooters, however I’d let ‘em go and hope they’d get better horns next year, but  folks around here will pop them if they get a chance!
    
On the early morning of the 4th, this grey fox is just sittin’ and mindin’ his own business as this big, fat buck, a 6 or 7, walks away from the trough.  This is probably the pot bellied buck.

Here’s another big buck, good size, wide spread, but he’s a little lop sided, his left side horns aren’t as long as his right.  The norther (cool front) just hit, so notice the temp 65, first time it’s been this low in about 2 months!

Here’s a gray fox running by the trough, but look at the temp 59, probably a record for the day around here.

No this isn’t about the Indian chief name Scar in the movie “The Searchers”, but as I was going through the pictures of deer from my game cam at the corn and protein feeder, yes I’ve added protein to the deer’s diet, I kept coming across one young doe with some sort of scar on the front of her right thigh.  She comes to the feeder regularly and a closer look at the scar, makes you think that a bobcat or mountain lion grabbed at it, locked on for a while, but lost it’s grip, then the young doe escaped.  Whether feeding at night, or during daylight, she’s never alone and always with one or more deer, in fact, she’s had company in all of the pictures.
    

    
Now last year, not 2 miles from my ranch, on the afternoon of September 1, 2010, I was driving south on Texas Highway 16 towards San Saba for an afternoon dove hunt, when several deer, running full out, flashed across the road a hundred yards ahead of me.  Not 10 seconds behind them, a mountain lion ran across the road in full chase, I thought Wow, the first one I’ve seen in the wild!  Two years before, a deer hunter shot a mountain lion not 20 miles from my place, so they are here.  Dutifully reporting the event to the local Texas Game Warden, he notified me that this year, (2010), big cats had been reported around Mullin, 10 miles north of Goldthwaite and their range can encompass several hundred square miles!

This “shot” best shows the scar.  My thought is that if a mountain lion had a hold of a young deer, it would be curtains for the deer and supper for the lion, so I believe that a bobcat grabbed a hold of this doe when it was just a fawn, but for some reason couldn’t hold on.  We do have bobcats around here and I shot one and posted the story on January 3, 2010, “[Wesley Breaks The Ice]”, so that’s my story and I’ll let the reader guess whether a lion or bobcat.

On Tuesday afternoon, the 22nd, celebrating the arrival of a new camera, around 5:00 PM I walked outside our front door and looked toward the water trough.  It’s only a little over 200 yards from our house and running up to the water was a roadrunner, fumbling around with the new camera, I finally got this “shot” of the bird.

No more action with my new camera, but during the afternoon of the 24th, I replaced the memory card and reaimed the game cam and when I displayed the card, on the 22nd at 5:20 PM, 7 deer came up to get water.  Then on the evening of the 23rd, 3 spikes, all in a row, came running toward the water
    
So by the afternoon of the 23rd I had become quite familiar with my new camera and was rewarded with some fine pictures, even in our extreme drought conditions, of some great deer!  Hoping to almost synchronize some camera “shots” with some game camera “shots”, it didn’t work out, because the big bucks were watering at the far end of the trough and the game cam wasn’t aimed at that end.  This situation was corrected with the card replacement on the 24th.

Here is my new camera “shot” of 2 good, 8 pointers and notice how much bigger the big 8 is than the other buck and on the other “shot” when the flash went off, the little one looked up.  This is the “shot” I was hoping to synchronize, but my game cam was aimed wrong.
     
With the big 8 posing, another young one walked up, not fazing the big ‘un.

But a short time earlier on the afternoon of the 23rd, these other deer, 3 bucks, one a good 6, a doe and a spotted fawn, came to water.  This “shot” shows how one end of the trough was masked from the game cam.

It’s pretty obvious that right at dark on Tuesday afternoon, the bucks were really out!

On the afternoon of the 17th the first ones up were a doe and a roadrunner.  The doe looks like an old one, potbelly and all and I’ll start looking to see if she has any fawns this year.

Look closely, there are 8 deer in this picture, one’s legs can be seen between the two trees.  The old, fat doe is getting another drink and there are 2 fawns in the picture, maybe they’re hers?

Two bucks showed up a little later, nice ones!  One is a young 8 pointer and the other looks like a 7 and he appears to be around 4 or 5 years old.

Now there is a first for the water trough, a possum, or opossum, marsupials that have a short gestation period, 12 to 14 days.  As the fat doe walks away, still no fawns and for a drink, this possum has to reach way over for the water.

Before dark on the 20th, some young bucks showed up at the trough, one’s horns aren’t entirely visible, one looks like a 10 pointer, not well developed horns, however still young and the last may be a palmated 7, the first sighting for this one.

After trying out 2 different, 4 GB, HC cards and finding out that the particular cards  work in my camera, but they won’t work in my game cameras, I finally got back into the business of monitoring the water trough.  Having ordered a new camera, I’ll just use the 4 GB cards in it and take advantage of the one hour of video, anyway, as Shakespeare once wrote, “All’s well that ends well.”

Sunday afternoon the 14th, around 3:00 PM, I put the 2 GB, HD card in the game cam at the water trough and not much later 4 doe and 2 fawn showed up.  You have to look for two of the deer, but the 4 at the trough are easy to spot.

The action picked up around before 9:00 PM on the 15th, when this lopsided buck showed up.  This guy is a new one around here and the “weather affect” has gotten the best of his horns!

Then around an hour later this 8 pointer, along with a spike showed up.  This is the first identifiable, good buck that I’ve seen and it’s questionable if it may be the big 6 that was “shot” in my post of “[he Water Trough, August 8, 2011]”, but since both bucks have pot belly, they may be one in the same.  A couple of more “shots” should make the identification positive.

Last, just before sun up on the 15th, this mother coon and her kittens were walking, all lined up, along the edge of the trough.

After the debacle of the 4GB, HC cards, I was just making sure the game cam worked OK and the afternoon of the 15th, I swapped the 2GB, HD card out with another, so there’s only 2 days of “shots” on this one.

Finally getting the high protein deer food mixed with corn, the second feeder is set up and throwing, a game camera will also be set up soon.  The 20% protein pellets seem to work well with the spin feeder, especially since it’s hyper-dry around here because in the past, sometimes the pellets would gather moisture, clogging up the feeder, slim chance of that now.

In the morning, at softball practice last week, Mickey Donahoo and I tasted the protein pellets, basically they were dry and tasteless, ugh!  We have both found that dog biscuits are much more, moist and quite tasty!

Look closely at the picture, scattered about is the corn and, looking real close, some of the protein pellets are visible, now, however, the deer have responded to the feeder and are really cleaning up the corn and protein.

We are covered up with spikes, it’s probably from the lack of moisture and food for the bucks and at least 5 have been identified and they won’t make it until next year!
    

     
Finally seeing a young buck with good antler formation, the best I’ve seen so far, maybe he’s been getting healthy food somewhere?  I’ll be sure to tell everybody not to shoot him too!