Deer portraits

Last week I went to check one of my trail cameras; I recently purchased a second camera at a big discount.  This camera was placed in approximately the same location as it was for the first set of pictures that I shared.  I did move the camera a little closer to the trail I was photographing, with the goal of getting better pictures of the raccoon and opossum that I photographed the first time around.  The weather, rainy then cold, meant that there was very little animal activity, but one interesting thing happened.

This time the deer discovered the camera.

Here is part of a sequence of one young deer checking out the camera.

There is a lot of speculation about why animals notice game cameras.  Some people say that they see the camera taking photos (there is a tiny red light that goes off - deer do not see red very well).  Others say that the animals hear the camera take the picture.  Many suggest that animals smell the cameras, either human scent on the camera or the electronics themselves.  In reality, deer probably just notice that there is something in the woods that wasn't there before and they check out the camera just like a person would check out something new that suddenly appeared in their home.