Lake Wichita Deer Encounter With No Bears Or Native Americans

After weeks of temperatures in the 90s or triple digits, the heat came to an end a couple days ago with a cold front blowing in, dropping the temperature closer to freezing than 100. The cold front came in with a lot of rain, but today, this second Saturday of the 2020 version of September, the rain has stopped, the temperature remains cool, and so, today, I joined the throngs having themselves a mighty fine time rolling and walking and running on the Circle Trail.

Today I opted to head south on the Circle Trail. I have been avoiding going that way during the heat wave due to the lack of trees providing any shade. But, today there was no need for shade.

When the Circle Trail leaves the top of Lake Wichita Dam it crosses into Lake Wichita Park. This is a big park, with a lot of jungle-like foliage.  At the point on the trail where gets close to the lake and to Mount Wichita, suddenly, a big animal leaped over the trail, and stopped. 

And so I also stopped. And got out my phone hoping to get a picture. The big animal was a big deer. Can you find the deer in the above photo?

It's near the center of the photo.

Here's a cropped fuzzy closeup.

I snapped two photos and then began slowly rolling my bike towards the deer, hoping not to spook it. I made it about 15 feet closer when suddenly a second deer appeared. At that point both deer decided to run under cover and away from me. They may have been spooked by some incoming bikers heading towards me and the deer.

And on other deer related news. We have the below from Washington's Harstine Island.

That looks to be Theo on the deck of the Harstine Island cabin, feeding one of the deer with whom David, Theo and Ruby have become acquainted. 

Yesterday, or the day before, I mentioned Washington's Linda Lou's encounter with a bear whilst driving in the flatland zone of the Skagit Valley. I have heard no further bear reports. I suspect a lot of wildlife is likely leaving the blazing mountain zones for the relatively fire-free lowland zones.

Meanwhile, in Texas, there are reports of bear sightings in the Big Bend region. With photo documentation of a mama bear and some cubs.

Apparently the Texas bear population has long been decimated, along with the Native American population. I don't know if the Texas bears were also moved to Oklahoma along with the Indians.