As this crocus (Crocus) shows, spring is coming to our part of North Carolina and the last days of winter have not infrequently been warm and sunny. This led me to take a break a couple weeks ago for a walk in our neighborhood woods.

The sunlight filtered through the trees, creating lots of shadows and sunlit patches on the forest floor. I was looking to see if the natural shelters constructed by homeless people still were up and found three. None appeared to have been made or used recently.

As I was walking around one to photograph it, my footsteps and movement rustled up some other neighborhood residents, who had been taking a rest at the edge of the woods. Four white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) got to their feet and gave me some looks of irritation at having disturbed their R&R.

As I walked another way, they began keeping pace with me at a distance. I thought they would just choose another patch to lie in but, for some reason, they decided to see where I was going. At first, I thought it was a buck and some does.

Later, I realized it was a group of bucks, some of whom had already shed their antlers. I kept a lookout for antlers but didn’t see any. However, one local buck had gifted me with one in my front yard recently.

For some odd reason, I rarely see or hear birds in this particular woodsy area, but that day I encountered a Carolina chickadee (Poecile carolinensis) singing away.

My next stop was to see how the two abandoned cars in these woods were faring. They must have been left here decades ago and have been like evolving metal sculptures as the scouring winds, sun, rain and ice change their appearance.

As I was taking photos of the cars, I heard movement behind me and there was the group of deer, still keeping tabs on me. The big male who still had antlers stamped his foot to warn me off, even though I hadn’t turned in their direction. Given his wariness, I certainly wasn’t going to go charging up to them for close-ups!

My walk ended with some surprising good views of a hermit thrush (Catharus guttatus). They rarely come to my yard so it was lovely to see one in the woods that day. They will likely be migrating soon and we will have new birds to welcome as spring arrives in her full glory. It was a very pleasant winter walk!