Especially for those that don`t get out hunting much at all.

Hell. I thought you were in Colorado, until the last pic!

Looks like scouting for elk.

Fantastic once again Gryph. I think one of those stags swallowed a barrel.

That one is out of sequence as he sprung me,spun and then did the runaway train thing..I will fix it.You should have heard him/them go across the swamp and I just caught him getting out the other side with a bow wave two foot high in front.

great pics as usual

very kool Pics Gryph

The echidna is a dandy.

Great pics John. in your experience do you think sambar come into the fringe area much? i always thought of it as fallow area and the sambar would be deeper in... In thicker and harder hunting. Thickets of bullshit thich backbery is where i see sambar sign and fallow rubs are further out near open ateas.

Sambar go where the best feed is and it can be surprising to see where they actually get to at times but there is always a stronghold of "as thick as possible" cover chosen to lay up in over the daylight hours.What part of that thickest shit is determined by weather of course.(and feed)

Many of these deer in the pics have come through 1-2 kilometres of dense shit to get out on the fringe,many times they don't show at all. Usually they are on the other side 10 k`s away!
First thing I do is evaluate the weather before heading to a particular place.
Those silhouette pics? The deer are 100 yards from probably the worst and thickest scrub/bush there is and its steep too..perfect!
One errant breeze and the game is over,they disappear into the cover and will not show until dark,often way after dark.

Find b/berries in sambar country and you will find the deer at the right time of the year..somewhere!The thicker the better.
That stag in the pics above going over the bank is diving right into a super berry patch for cover,they love them and thats where they grow up when the hinds plant them for safety.
Many many times I have had a sambar explode right out of the guts of a berry bush just mere yards from me,bushes with a hole the size of what you would think was a wombat hole.It has me stuffed at times as to how they get inside the hidey hole without leaving more evidence.
One of the hardest things is to catch them in the more open areas where they rarely relax at all,in thick bush its sometimes possible to sneak within spitting distance with no chance of either camera or rifle shot.
They are a master race in the deer world.

The next couple of pics for you Shankspony,note one black and one white tip..a little unusual in the area.





Pushing spikey`s



A hind honking me



And a pic taken in the scrub and berries.





Spikey enjoying his domain one evening up high.



Stag/hind/calf in a feed gully bottom "at berry time"







A maiden hind caught out of cover at to me an unusual time of 8-8-30 am.I had actually put my camera and tripod into the pack to walk back out when i saw her walk out...I nearly choked as i had been into that place 100 times and never seen one at that time of day haha....just shows ya!






Thought this bloke was a wombat initially from my first view point.

More good, pics, John. Hope I find a spot half as good where I'm going.

BTW, I stumbled on the origin of the word echidna the other day, in a book on Greek mythology: apparently it was the name of the gorgon, though the smaller Oxford dictionaries only say it means viper.