Looking at Trees (aka Deer Hunting)

For the past three days I've been getting up a good hour before dawn, putting on three layers of clothes plus a coat, and walking out to the woods to sit and look at trees.  Really, I've been deer hunting, but other than the first morning, I haven't seen many deer.  Mostly birds, and trees.  Lots of trees.  Little trees, big trees, apple trees, thorny trees, oak trees, living trees, dead trees. . .

I'm sitting in the 'new' stand we put out this summer.  It used to be our kids' play set, when they were little.  When they'd all outgrown it except the youngest one, I proposed to DH that it could be converted to an elevated blind and taken out to the woods.  Four years later. . . If I can dig up  some pictures of it in it's play set days I'll write a post about recycling a play set into a hunting blind.

Anyway, this new blind is situated just inside the woods, on the western edge, not quite at the half-way point north and south.  From it, I can see partly into the woods, in a very thick cover area, and also a good portion of the north-south line on the eastern edge of the field.  Opening morning I saw 19 deer.  Unfortunately, none close enough to shoot and  no horns,.  They mostly looked like this:

Can you see the deer?

Look again.  The picture below is the same, except I enhanced it with some helpful arrows.

Can you see the shape of the deer's back and hindquarter through the brush now?  That's pretty much what I saw.  Movement and outlines through the branches.  A few deer ventured into the field, but they were way out there, more than 100 yards away.

So, mostly, I looked at trees.  And took pictures.

My east shooting lane as the sun came up.

The field (west) as the sun was rising.  There was a light fog over the field.

Looking northwest, the direction I did see deer, way off in the field.  The camera didn't pick them up.

An abandoned bird nest in the apple tree behind me.

Kicking back, waiting for deer.  This was about three hours in to a 5-hour sit.

Female cardinal

View to the south.

Chickadee in the weeds, it was eating the seed heads off dead flowers.

My new hunting palace.