One day I was hiking in Virginia with some friends. I was on the Appalachian Trail doing my thru-hike and we had just left a nice bed and breakfast located in Montebello. I had to go find a tree and told my friends to go on ahead and I would catch up. So I dropped my pack, hiked off the trail until I was behind a hill and did my thing.

On the way back to the trail, I was hiking down the hill mindlessly looking where I walked when suddenly I saw this fawn right under my boot. I practically fell over in the attempt to not actually step on the poor thing. After the shock of almost stepping on it wore off, I was absolutely amazed. The deer was sitting perfectly still and not running from me. I had not seen it at all until it was almost too late. It blended in so perfectly with the surrounding forest. Had I not almost stepped on it, I never would have known it was there. I later found out that this was a fawn's typical survival technique. The mother leaves the fawn and hopes that her scent will lure predators away. The fawn itself has no scent and is therefore very hard for predators to locate.

So there I was standing in the forest with a motionless baby deer sitting a foot away from me. Of course I pulled out my camera! I got as close as I thought I could without getting any of my stink on it. I didn't know at the time why the mother had left it but I have heard that some other baby animals will be abandoned by their mothers if handled by people. I didn't remember what kind of animals though. Erring on the side of caution, I tried my best to make my stay quick and not touch the fawn or get too close and stink it up. Otherwise I would have stayed longer and stuck the camera right in it's face. The poor thing was breathing heavy and was obviously scared though so I wrapped up my photo shoot as soon as I could. As I picked up my pack and left, I know I would probably never have that experience again. I am very glad I had my camera to remember the experience.