We (my dog Harley and myself) were sitting on the balcony watching the world go by when this deer appeared. Harley immediately started barking at it. This didn’t seem to bother the deer one bit. He/she just stood there looking at Harley. After a while Harley stopped barking and they both just stood there looking at each other for some time. I didn’t really want to take any more pictures of deer – I have so many, but I couldn’t resist.

When I looked at the picture on the computer I noticed that the deer had lots of bumps on its head, neck and shoulders. Examining them more closely I realized that they were probably engorged deer ticks.

This made me wonder if deer get Lyme disease. After some internet research I discovered that they don’t. They carry the ticks around, but, if bitten don’t get the disease. Some research also indicates that not only do the deer not get the disease, but if they are bitten by a tick they somehow make the tick immune from the disease. Apparently the ticks get the disease from mice, not from deer. So the bad guys in all of this are not the ticks, not the deer, but the mice.

Taken with a Sony A77II and Tamron SP A08 200-500 f/5-f/6.3 IF di