Boyz in the Hood

There were three of them here yesterday morning. I was able to take these pictures from the deck and not alarm them much. They had followed a group of does up the hill (it IS that time of year) and they were on their way back down to the Bayou Gulch bottoms, pausing along the way to nosh on sumac leaves. The little arroyo just east of the house is their usual travel route. 

A couple of days earlier, I saw a larger buck with a much larger rack than any of these, in the same area. He was ambling along with a group of eight does. He had lost half of the antler on one side of his head (I assume in seasonal jousting) that gave him quite an ungainly appearance.  The does didn't seem to mind.