Saturday, February 10, 2007

Searching for Bay Ice and Finding, Again, a White Deer

As we went through another in a string of very cold days today, I started wondering whether there might be ice anywhere in the Delaware Bay. Driving up and down the state this week, I have seen ice on the ponds and some of the slower rivers. And there were ice chunks in the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal.

So I decided to pay another visit to the point at Cape Henlopen and take a look.

Bay Ice 4I found some ice; thin floes blown ashore on the inside curve of the point. The ice was a few inches thick, and spread out into the shallowest part of the bay, towards the lighthouse.

I also found the white deer that I'd spotted on my last trip to Cape Henlopen Park.

White Deer ReduxThis time I got a clearer photo of the deer's head, which is brown. That suggests that this is a deer in moult, and not an albino, as I had first thought. In fact, this may be another animal entirely.

In any case, it was fun to see this. I just wish my camera was better suited to long-range telephoto work.

3 comments:

jay lassiter said...

wow, what an amazing shot. i sometimes grab my telescope to regard the regular deer in cherry hill (there are shitloads of 'em) but a white deer would be very special indeed.

Tim Chaney said...

Great picture of the albino deer. When I worked in Ocean City in the 80's, I remember the ocean freezing at some point. That was the same year that the huge chunks of ice broke the pilings and the boardwalk fishing pier came crumbling down.

Unknown said...

Very nice shot. I've still yet to see one in the wild. "nosweat", that looks more like a piebald deer than an
albino deer. You can tell by the color on his head. Both are quite rare, but that looks to be a piebald.

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