I almost hit the first. The oncoming car had his high beams on, and all I saw was four very long and skinny legs walking across the road. He made it past me and the dimmit my ass guy. The second, two miles further on, crossed at leaps and bounds as I am used to seeing them. Maybe I’ll wait until the sun is all the way up. Are Whitetails in season this time of year?
I don’t think they are in season, worse luck.
Coyote crossed in front of me the other day in broad daylight. Not too unusual.
No, I meant are they in heat, moving around a lot looking to mate.
Nope, that’s in the fall.
They’re usually particularly active around sunrise and sunset, which is probably why you saw them when you did.
It’s always deer-hittin’ season around here. Those little bastids pop out 12 months a year. I hate when that happens!!
It can ruin your day, not to mention your car.
I haven’t seen many of them this Winter, though.
We’re seeing them in the yard all the time, but nothing on the road yet. Knock on wood.
Ungulates rut.
Thanks, qwest. 
I may never again get the opportunity to use the word ungulat in a sentence.
Band name!
Rats on stilts I say’s. Just about walked into one the other day. Coming home from the grocery store, turned the corner and there’s a deer about five feet in front of me. We just kind of looked at each other and he ran off one way and I went the other. Scared the crap out me frankly, mostly because it was night and I was all of a sudden like “Hey! That’s a large animal in my way and it’s not a dog”. Took me a few seconds to register what it was, weird thing is it’s not like I live in the sticks. I’m on the outskirts of a decent sized city.
Same here. I could just see the legs due to the headlight glare, and since she was walking, not leaping, I expected a dog. I thought three foot long legs! *Space alien! * before I realized it was a deer.
I live in the woods, along a mile long square of blacktop with houses inside and one lot thick around it. I saw four ungulates running through a yard. They were does, and leaping over chain link fences between the houses in perfect stride, as you or I would step over a crack in the sidewalk.
My husband hit one a couple years ago. Evidently the deer won. We didn’t find him, but when we returned to the scene of the accident, we walked a good quarter mile picking up pieces of our car. It can indeed cause major damage, and this wasn’t even a major hit!
In Maryland, there are three rut peaks. A really big one in Mid-november, then a smaller one in December, and an even smaller one in January, so it is possible you were seeing some breeding activity. Another factor that will affect deer movement is weather. Has it been colder than normal where you are? They tend to move a lot more when it’s cold.
Yesterday was warmer, actually. About 60F.
Around here, we don’t have just 1 or 2, we have whole freakin’ herds (upwards of a dozen in a bunch) crossing the streets. It is a huge problem with accidents almost every day. The county sheriff is sending out sharpshooters to trim the numbers down. Amazingly, some people are complaining about that.
By a strange coincidence, this morning I narrowly avoided hitting two drops of golden sun.
Whenever a deer runs in front of you, even if you miss it, SLOW DOWN. Deer usually travel in groups and very often people miss a deer only to hit the one that was following it.
It’s becoming a huge problem in Ohio, too. Duration of gun season is only one week, and the bag limit is pretty small. They really need extend the season to two or three weeks, or increase the bag limit.