Cat Island is a tiny speck of an island just off the mountainous coastline of Ross Lake in Northern Cascade National Park. To see it on google maps click here. Cat Island sits about 50 yards from the adjacent shoreline. Julie and I arrived on Cat by small rowboat in the morning and set up our tent, then left to explore the lake. When we got back we found this deer in a neighboring campsite. It seemed as surprised to see us as we were to see it. I wondered how this deer came to be on the island. Perhaps there was a whole family of deer here. I decided to get my camera and go on the easiest tracking mission ever (the island can be crossed in any direction in a few minutes). At this point the island was also becoming engulfed in a hazy smoke from the nearby Thursday Creek wildfire, giving the sunlight a beautiful diffused quality great for photography. I found the deer without much trouble. I knew it was the same deer because she had black scars on her side, perhaps from a run in with a bear or a barbed-wire fence. The deer didn't run off when I approached her, so I just sat and watched her for twenty minutes or so. It was during that time that I noticed her full teats, and figured she was pregnant. I suspect this deer, sensing she was pregnant, swam to this island to give birth and raise her young in an environment that lacked any predators. I was amazed by the sophistication of this animal. I left her after a while and returned to my campsite to read a book. About an hour later the deer came right down next to me as if to say, "I'm curious to see how you live too." I wonder what she would blog about me.
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