Wildlife encounter *AND* a power outage last night....

[MacTech]

Up here in southeastern New England we've been having strong, but fast-moving thunderstorms for the past couple weeks, in fact, on Thursday, there were confirmed TORNADO funnel clouds in Epping and Exeter New Hapshire, as well as in Eliot Maine.....

this is in New England, tornadoes in New England!, that almost never happens....

anyway, we just had high winds and sideways rain, and at around 9 PM, we lost power, flashed three times, and then out for four hours

while there was some Quality Darkness to have, I;
grabbed my PT EOS and put it on
grabbed my MagCharger
turned on my 2C Mag with MJLED on the wall clamp for ambient lighting
checked to make sure I had my EDC lights as well, my Aviatrixed A2 and my Novatac 120-P, I did

I grabbed the MC and headed out to the car, rain pouring down, and drove around the block a couple times searching for line damage (curiosity, mainly), the MC worked just like a police car A-Pillar searchlight, easily lighting the tops of the telephone poles

I never found the source of the outage though

So, I drove back home, as I got out of the car, as I stood in the rain, I saw the tell-tale eyeshine of an animal out in our hay field....

could it be one of our cats?
a Coydog?
one of our family of rather brave almost-tame deer? (we have 50 acres of land, and a family of 5 deer living on it, the land is posted no trespassing/no hunting)

I shouldered the MagCharger and lit it up, loosing it's brilliant incan beam into the field.....

Yep, one of our does, just as I thought, I then wondered how close I could get to it, I kept the MC trained on it, and the deer was transfixed by the MC's beam, the thing had a real, well, i *guess* it could be called a "deer in headlights" expression, totally blank and vapid, nothing going on upstairs.....

I was able to get within 30 yards of the animal, and it showed no sign of movement, even when I circled to the right to get a better side angle, it just kept staring into the light, utterly clueless, it's expression made cows look like Albert Einstein, never have I seen a blanker expression

I wondered what it would take to get it to move or otherwise react, so I spoke....

"hello there, deer, pretty miserable weather we're having, eh?"
the deer stood up
"now Don't Panic, I'm not going to hurt you, I just wanted to see how close I could get to you before you reacted to my presence"
the deer took a couple tenative steps away
"okay, looks like about this close then, not bad"
with that final word, the deer quickly ducked back into the woodlot
"okay, good night then, try to stay dry"

Now I understand why "spotlight" hunting is not permitted in Maine, the poor deer just get transfixed by the light and would be an easy target for a hunter, still, it was a fun wildlife encounter nonetheless

 

[RyanA]

Meh to me deer are giant plague rats. They carry deer ticks and with the ticks lymes. I'm actually going to look into a bowhunting license so hopefully I can shoot the ones that come in my yard without waking the neighbors (condos). If you've got the space I suppose their fine, but they're starting to encroach pretty heavily on the residential areas here.

I was talking to someone this morning though. Not sure if it's true but apparently spotlight hunting is legal (here) right now. The population is that large I guess.

 

[BirdofPrey]

they're starting to encroach pretty heavily on the residential areas here.

Kinda got that backwords don't you?

 

[RyanA]

Thats a matter of opinion and timeline. The deer weren't in these areas 10 years ago. 100? sure. But I'm not giving up my home to be one with the deer. I doubt anyone here cares about deer that much. Besides Lymes disease is no joke, and will jack you up. So in my opinion, they came on my turf first homie.:nana:

 

[PhantomPhoton]

Kinda got that backwards don't you?

+1 :touche:

 

[RyanA]

might have been a pun?

 

[Juggernaut]

I never understood bow hunting, If you seem to just really have to kill something to show you are superior than it, at least do it over kill with heavy ordinance. If you said you were hunting deer in your back yard with 500 Jeffery rife it wouldn't be as bad "quick death" If I was you neighbor I would rather you woke me up at 3 in the morning after firing off one of your immensely over powered firearms than know that one of the deer my get away wounded. It's like killing spiders, "I don't like to" but you do it with a big towel and smother them instantly, not stabbing it to death with needles. "funny how humans complain about diseases that deer may have that could affect us, while we blatantly destroy their habitat and hunt them for sport."

I'm not attacking you personally, if I hated hunters, I wouldn't have any friends were I live:mecry:.

Anyways not to jack the thread I to live in new England and the funnel cloud was reported just 20 miles from my house, my family brought all the cats to the basement and I brought my BOB bag and some of my lights, well it wasn't necessary because the warning was lifted and our power never went out. It seems since I moved here our power never goes out, and if it does it's during the day.

 

[RyanA]

I wish you were my neighbor, lol. Been to RI lately?

But really though, It's the suburbs, not really kosher to shoot guns at 3 am.
It's not really kosher to fire guns at all.

 

[Juggernaut]

I wish you were my neighbor, lol. Been to RI lately?

But really though, It's the suburbs, not really kosher to shoot guns at 3 am.
It's not really kosher to fire guns at all.

Why don't you just get a silencer? Oh wait than your neighbors call you in as a terrorist! And the government would hall you away for being considerate, "I mean a crazed mad man" You just can't please everyone these days can you:shrug:?

We better stop before we jack the thread. Sorry:sigh:.

 

[DM51]

Meh to me deer are giant plague rats… (etc)

… Anyways not to jack the thread…

… We better stop before we jack the thread…

Between the two of you, you already HAVE hijacked the thread. What is more, you were aware of that, but you still carried on doing it.

Get back on topic or keep out of it.

 

[Patriot]

Mac Tech

I enjoyed you story about stalking in on the doe. They are such funny animals and so unpredictable at times. I've also found the each one has it's own personality and behavior. Sometimes a deer or family of deer are very tolerant of humans and human activity and other deer are so freaked out by us that they live their entire adult life without ever being seen by a human, avoiding roads, vehicles or anything associated with us. I consider those type of wildlife encounters a total treat. It sounds like your trusty magcharger did a fine job also. Thanks for sharing that story. Very cool!

 

[Juggernaut]

MacTech, The Magcharger you speck of sure stopped the deer in it's tracks, is it modified in anyway or is it just stock?

 

[Illum]

I've always wondered whether animals are transfixed by the wavelength's outside the visible spectrum as they don't seem to be affected by LED light.

Your putting yourself in more danger driving out in the rain than checking after the weather subsides. An outage could occur for a variety of reasons. A short from a tree branch or a tripped lightning arrester could render an entire block pitch black. Usually there are sensors abroad that trigger grid relays to transfer power from elsewhere. You had the correct assumption that maybe a failed power pole was to blame, but unless your willing to drive the distance between the nearest substation to your house, stay home.

 

[MacTech]

MacTech, The Magcharger you speck of sure stopped the deer in it's tracks, is it modified in anyway or is it just stock?

Not yet, ATM it's bone stock

 

[Retinator]

Wildlife is so cool to run into!
For night hikes I've only spotted a racoon up a tree with my 6PL. He didn't seem phased by it, just blinked and continued climbing, never took his eyes of me (or my light).

I'd love to live in the country, but I still love downtown cores as well.
Sounds like you had a fun time.

 

[tebore]

Wildlife is so cool to run into!
For night hikes I've only spotted a racoon up a tree with my 6PL. He didn't seem phased by it, just blinked and continued climbing, never took his eyes of me (or my light).

I'd love to live in the country, but I still love downtown cores as well.
Sounds like you had a fun time.

raccoons ack. Those are real menaces, they carry rabies, their fecal matter is toxic and they spread trash. They have no fear.

I hit with my EDC and they just stare back, I stepped closer and it just got angry and started to growl. The only way to get it run was to hit it with my 2000+ lumen mag.

 

[Juggernaut]

Yes it's odd how different animals react around people. Such as how deer are often very frightened of humans like in MacTech's case while raccoons are quite unafraid of humans. I was going out to get some batteries from my fathers car and when I went down the steps I saw a raccoon walking up my lawn towards my house, I was very quiet and turned off my task force and just stood there. The raccoon walked by me "only 5 feet away and just sort of hid behind a tree about 10 feet from were I was. I turned my light back on towards the tree, while walking past it so as to see on the other side. The raccoon looked at me and just walked off again slowly across my backyard into the forest. My family and I don't normally care about raccoons bothering us, because as I said in another thread they don't go though our garbage since my mother feeds them so much.

 

[Chrontius]

I never understood bow hunting, If you seem to just really have to kill something to show you are superior than it, at least do it over kill with heavy ordinance. If you said you were hunting deer in your back yard with 500 Jeffery rife it wouldn't be as bad "quick death" If I was you neighbor I would rather you woke me up at 3 in the morning after firing off one of your immensely over powered firearms than know that one of the deer my get away wounded. It's like killing spiders, "I don't like to" but you do it with a big towel and smother them instantly, not stabbing it to death with needles. "funny how humans complain about diseases that deer may have that could affect us, while we blatantly destroy their habitat and hunt them for sport."

Actually, I don't kill spiders - I drop a clear cup over them, slide a piece of cardboard under that, and toss them out the door. That way, they're eating roaches before they get in, and Florida harbors *scads* of them.

As for hunting deer for sport, we really do have to do that so they don't breed themselves into starvation. You know, after we killed off all their natural predators. Also, to put things in perspective, modern broadhead arrows make big holes too, and hunters with rifles still often end up trying to track down a deer they shot that still managed to run away.

Back on topic, best I have to say is there seems to be a few rabbits running around my friend's neighborhood, and something dove into the bushes by my front door last night just before I got my light in the right direction. You people are lucky.