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Strange things while hunting.

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Eric Krewson:
Anybody see strange things happen while hunting?

I saw this and it still has me wondering;

I saw some deer communication on a hunt that still has me baffled as to its complexity.

I pulled my wife's and my treestand to food plot at the end of a huge hollow on a deer cart. I got her set up overlooking the plot, left the deer cart in an old field road behind the plot and climbed a tree overlooking a honeysuckle patch about 50 yards from the plot.

Later I herd deer coming down the hollow toward the plot, there were seven of them if I remember correctly. The deer stopped on the back side of the honeysuckle patch, they sent a sacrificial fawn ahead to check for danger.

The fawn walked down a well worn deer trail and stepped out into the field road near my deer cart. The fawn instantly spied the cart and stood there looking at the it, flicking it's ears and bobbing its head. It turned and walked back to the main group of deer.

When the fawn got back to the group they formed a circle around it, it proceeded to go through the same head bobbing ear flicking motions it made when it spied the cart.

A big alpha doe left the group and walked down the same trail the fawn had walked back to the field road. She stuck her head out of the honeysuckle thicket, looked at the deer cart then turned and went back to the group.

When the doe got back to the group they formed another circle with their heads facing each other. The big doe went through the same head bobbing, ear flicking routine as the fawn had. In a moment, with a loud WOOF, she led the rest of the deer back up the hollow at breakneck speed.

These deer were communicating on a level I had previously thought to be impossible, pretty strange.......

Tracker0721:
That's so cool! I love seeing animals behave when they think no ones watching. I've seen some strange stuff, like a fully set up camp camo'd in back in a deep dark part of the woods on a wildlife refuge with no camping permitted. Looked like the people had left seconds before so I knew I was being watched and took off. Also have found random bags tossed in the middle of the woods. Joys of living by Canada and key Mary Jane grow sites. As for animals I saw a hawk chasing squirrels through the trees and it'd hop up all the branches spiraling around the tree till the squirrel moved to another tree. Then it'd fly off and come back and do it again. Also watched ground squirrels eat their dead friends as if they hadn't eaten in years. Nothing scarier then looking at a squirrel drenched in blood eating a lung of another.

Chief RID:
Very fortunate Eric. I have never seen anything that comes close to that.

osage outlaw:
I've had close encounters with owls, hawks, and a flying squirrel that tried to land on my headlamp.  Once I saw a possum come up the hill and go over the other side out of site.  A while later he walked back the way he came.  He had a stack of leaves wrapped up in his tail.  They were all the same shape and neatly stacked.  I watched him make several trips back and forth like that.  He must have had a specific type of leaf that he preferred for his den.

Another time I was hunting during the early bow season and wasn't seeing anything but a lot of squirrels.  Suddenly one squirrel let out a screeching sound like I've never heard before.  It was high pitch and almost sounded like a scream.  All the other squirrels in the valley started making the same sound for a few seconds and then everything went silent until it got dark.  It was very eerie. 

Probably the strangest thing was when I heard an elk bugle on multiple days during deer season.  We don't have elk in Indiana.  I thought maybe it was somebody messing around with a call but the call sounded like it was coming from different directions throughout the evenings.  My neighbor and 2 of my relatives hunting nearby heard it also.  Maybe an elk escaped from a game farm.

BowEd:
Learning from wildlife there noises and actions and reasons for them takes concentration and patience.Someone with me that wants to talk too much I get away from.Being a single guy most of my life I'm very well at home in the woods by myself  daylight or night mostly training dogs having coon hunted 250 nights a year for 25 to 30 years.Many different states.Hunting along rivers I like the most.Lots of action and your noises there.Could mention lots of stories.Deer stand hunting is no different.I use squirrels to tell me something is coming.Watch other deer to tell me more are coming.Blue jays,crows,and chicadees have their warning calls too.I use them for my own benefit.
Not trying to sound like a know it all here and don't know it all at all but it's something I've been comfortable with all of my life.COOL that you guys are talking about it.To me it's really not strange or alarming.We are the strangers really.It's an ever ongoing learning process for us humans.

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