Happy Wednesday! 

Yesterday afternoon I had some meetings at one of our smaller banks.  By the time I finished it was late enough that if I drove straight back to Maquoketa it would be closing time so I decided to take an alternate road home and see what images I could capture.

The light was getting soft and it was a perfect time of the day.  Although it was only 3 above with a 15 – 20 mph wind so the shooting conditions were not ideal.  None the less undeterred and with no personal concern for my comfort, I went in search of things to shoot with my camera.

As I have noted on this blog before, the deer population is abundant.  This has been a difficult winter for them and they are struggling to find food.  This little guy was right next to the road trying to find some prairie grass to eat.

A few miles down the road and I saw a large herd of deer feeding on the remains of a corn field.  I turned around and followed a gravel road to a vantage point that I could make this image.  These deer, while watching me all the time, made no effort to get away from me.  They had found some food and were not about to run away from it.    This scene was repeated several times on my journey home.  I hate to see animals struggle.  When you think about how long, cold, and miserable this winter has been it’s hard to imagine what the animals have to go though when they can’t come in to a nice warm house and get a hot meal.

I see the same animals (horses and cows) on the way to work every day standing out in the open.  Watching the steam come from their breathing and imagining how uncomfortable they must be.

I found a surprising number of things to photograph on this little journey.  There were a couple of times I had no idea where I was but knew eventually I find a road where I had been before.  This is what I saw before finally deciding I better head for a warm home and a hot meal.  🙂

All images were shot with a Nikon D600 | Nikon 80 – 400 mm VR 5.6 lens | ISO 800 1/1250 sec @ f8.0

Thanks for stopping by.  Next few days well into next week, it sounds like there will be more of the same.  Bitterly cold temperatures and lots of snow in the forecast.  Enjoy your day and be thankful your are not animal.  Be careful.