Sparring Whitetail Bucks

This morning shortly after 7:00, I had the opportunity to observe one spike buck and a small 8 point working each other with antlers inter-locked. The skies were cloudy and the light of day was still barely visible. Opening the door to try to catch some pictures anyway. I was greeted with the sound of something making a heavy crackling noise across the leaves and twigs lying on the ground in the timber. I had gone to alert Hubby to the two bucks ,only to come back and find two more had entered the arena. They too were jousting, antlers inter-locked. What was more impressive is they also carried racks of impressive size. You should have seen the most dominate of the whole group(pictured in the middle above). Not only did he carry majestically a nice rack on top of his head but he was thick in body muscle. An awesome creature. I will have to clarify the antler formations in this region of central Iowa are relatively small compared to what you might find in the southeastern part of Iowa. At least that has been my experience so far. These guys will still be the center of some ones story very soon. Maybe, even mine ;) Hubby and I observed them between 5 - 10 minutes, had them all watching us from the back door,eye to eye contact. We did get some pictures that look much like trail cameras at a distance. Hoping I will get another chance to see them all today with enough light to get a great picture for "Show and Tell"...