{"id":35114,"date":"2015-11-14T06:18:22","date_gmt":"2015-11-14T13:18:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=35114"},"modified":"2015-11-14T07:42:37","modified_gmt":"2015-11-14T14:42:37","slug":"mule-deer-buck-in-rut","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2015\/11\/14\/mule-deer-buck-in-rut\/","title":{"rendered":"Mule Deer Buck In Rut"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is one of the more handsome bucks I’ve seen in a very long time.<\/p>\n

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\"mule<\/p>\n

1\/3200, f\/6.3, ISO 640, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

I photographed him yesterday morning at Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge. He had a single doe with him that he was very attentive to but I didn’t get any good photos of her because whenever I turned my lens her way she was always facing away from me. Both of them were in deep vegetation much of the time so I chose to crop this image as a portrait.<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n

\"mule<\/p>\n

1\/3200, f\/6.3, ISO 640, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Here’s a clearer shot for those who don’t particularly like all the grasses behind the buck in the first image. To my eye this guy’s face looks remarkably like that of a sheep and that intrigues me.<\/p>\n

Notice the highly swollen neck. When bucks are in rut their necks swell from the effects of testosterone, increased blood flow and muscle mass. Some sources I’ve seen say that the circumference of the neck can increase by as much as 50% from the swelling. \u00a0The swelling goes down again soon after the rut. I think it gives them a striking look, especially when combined with impressive antlers and those distinctive large ears.<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n

\"mule<\/p>\n

1\/2500, f\/6.3, ISO 400, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Here’s a look at the entire animal as he slowly but emphatically walked his lady (out of frame\u00a0in front of him) away from the road.\u00a0 I like this shot for a variety of reasons including the fact that I seldom see\u00a0Mule Deer\u00a0images with water in the background.<\/p>\n

I don’t post deer images often but this buck impressed me enough that I worked\u00a0unusually hard at\u00a0maneuvering my pickup to get better shots of\u00a0him and I think the extra\u00a0effort was worth it. As I was photographing him I heard the annoying sounds of duck hunter’s shotguns which made me thankful that this handsome guy made it through the deer hunting season intact.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is one of the more handsome bucks I’ve seen in a very long time.<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":35115,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[338,334,1410],"tags":[49,507,1359,502,2725,2726,311],"class_list":["post-35114","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bear-river-migratory-bird-refuge-favorite-locations","category-birds","category-mule-deer-mammals","tag-bear-river-migratory-bird-refuge","tag-buck","tag-mule-deer","tag-rut","tag-swollen-neck","tag-testosterone","tag-utah-2"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/mule-deer-3173-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-98m","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35114","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35114"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35114\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35115"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35114"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35114"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35114"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}