Hopeful contestant

We witnessed a really cool thing on a walk at Shannon Terrace, Fish Creek Park, this morning. A huge Mule Deer buck, accompanied by a doe, came towards us and got pretty close - certainly close enough, knowing that it's rutting season! Then this smaller buck arrived on the scene and approached the other two. Eventually, he realized that the first male was bigger and more powerful and that he might as well leave the scene, seeing as he would be out of luck. My photo is of the unfortunate "loser". He's still a pretty impressive sight, though, and we were thrilled to bits to see all three deer and this interesting behaviour.