Not all mammals are as excited about the prospect of meeting you as most dogs, some cats, and… well, whatever percentage of horses that can sense that you are worth meeting to the point where they are willing to walk over to the fence to meet you.  In fact, most mammals would just as soon not meet you. I hope that doesn’t hurt your feelings. You can’t take it personally. We did spend a lot of our history basically trying to kill and eat most of them.

Your average mammal will start walking away as soon as they see or smell you.

At the very least, they will turn and stare at you while they try to decide exactly what you are up to.

And then, seeing that you are human, and therefor, no doubt, up to no good, they will depart, often at a fairly good rate of speed.

The was to overcome this is by approaching them slowly and quietly… from downwind if you can. Oh, and having a good zoom lens doesn’t hurt. But remember, to some mammals, a big camera looks like a gun, and brings up unpleasant memories of stories passed down by their elders.

Yes, I know that isn’t a mammal. But I didn’t take any other bird pictures on this trip, so I can’t very well do a sill series of posts about meeting birds, can I? And it is a good picture of a wild turkey.