One recent evening on a walk to the far bog, we encountered turkeys in the field, a beaver (we think- could be a muskrat?), and then a young buck back in the field on the return leg.

There were four or five turkeys. Getting a good shot of them is difficult; they are skittish and I am not sure it is because of Murphy or not.

The image below is at the near side of the far bog and it was amazing to see this blob slowly cruising down the alley in the duckweed/slime directly right at us. This is the first time I noticed an “alley” in the water. At the beginning of the spring, this is all open water once the ice melts.

The creature continued straight at us. At about twenty feet away, it dove and seemed to appear right at the shoreline in front of us. It disappeared again. It may have swam off underwater or continued into a tunnel at the water’s edge in front of us.

The young buck was eating when we approached from the bog; we stopped; he looked up and then we stared at each other for a long while. The area between us and him was where the turkeys were about thirty minutes earlier! Because of the curvature of the field, I am sure the deer did not see Murphy. With that, Murphy also couldn’t see the deer. He did not indicate any targets on his nose radar.