Once Upon a Deer

Sometimes it's flowers, hikes, geocaches or even a barn kind of day...   Today, just for fun Antlers:   

This guy is really enjoying our garden while we enjoy him!!!  Incidentally he has 2 buddies that are both "four pointers", but they manage to stay out of camera and hopefully gun range.   FYI Each antler grows from an attachment point on the skull called a pedicle. While an antler is growing, it is covered with highly vascular skin called velvet, which supplies oxygen and nutrients to the growing bone. Antlers are considered one of the most exaggerated cases of male secondary sexual traits in the animal kingdom and grow faster than any other mammal bone. Growth occurs at the tip, (see the little tip at the tip of one antler). Once the antler has achieved its full size, the velvet is lost and the antler's bone dies and the antlers fall off. As a result of their fast growth rate, antlers are considered a handicap since there is an immense nutritional demand on deer to re-grow antlers annually, and thus can be honest signals of metabolic efficiency and food gathering capability. 

Who are you looking at?  I thought I was hidden
behind this tree.

I'm hungry...

Sniff, sniff, sniff

I can stand just as still as you... want to have
a staring contest?

Hey, you with the camera, is this edible?

I don't think so but you may as well try it, you munch
on everything else around here...

Well if that's the way you feel about it, I'm outa here!!!

You still there, must not have much to do... 

WOW, I thought you'd give up by now it's almost dark.

OK if you won't call it a day I will.
Good night - sweet dreams