December 19, 2018

Somewhere in Hungary...



Aerial view:

42 comments:

Sharc 65 said...

Charismatic megafauna!

NotWhoIUsedtoBe said...

Oh, deer!

Trumpit said...

I love animals. I despise hunters. I hate guns. Enough hate for one comment.

AllenS said...

A farmers worse nightmare.

Rusty said...

Caribou like behavior.

David Begley said...

City folk think deer are cute. They are dangerous pests. They eat crops and destroy crop land. Damage to vehicles and personal injuries are common.

A few years back three or four Creighton students were killed when they tried to avoid one. You are supposed to drive straight.

I hit one at night out by McCook. Scared the hell out of me.

BUMBLE BEE said...

Justification for high capacity magazines right there, "on the hoof".

Jim Gust said...

Are you sure that wasn't Connecticut? We are overrun with deer.

Michael Fitzgerald said...

Looked like reindeer, and the speech sounded Swedish, not Hungarian.

Fritz said...

At $29.50 a lb, the farmer should give up on soy beans (or whatever that is) and raise deer.



Tommy Duncan said...

Trumpit said: " I despise hunters."

So you hate dogs, cats, coyotes, bobcats, wolves, cougars, northern pike, large mouth bass, hawks, eagles, falcons, and so forth? But you love animals? You've lost me.

rehajm said...

My neighborhood has a bunch of whitetail. There's one group of nine that shows up on my lawn from time to time. They are comfortable with cars and humans and generally don't flee, so that helps.

Bart Hall (Kansas, USA) said...

I always enjoy the clips in Hungarian. Since my father-in-law died in 2011 I haven't been back there. The best translation of the headline on the clips is "This late afternoon the stream of deer are in the driver's seat." Nagyon szep [very pretty], and I'm a farmer.

From the looks of things, and the deer, I'd say this is in the Kisalföld [little plain] region of northwestern Hungary, somewhere around Sopron. This has been prime farming country for many thousands of years, and is home to one of Hungary's two excellent ag schools. Farmers long ago reached a functional accommodation with the deer, usually involving "vadász pörkölt" [hunter's stew].

In the first clip the upset little kid eventually asks whether these are Santa's reindeer.

Given the season, here's a https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTbskYrEYpw for your possible enjoyment. If you enjoy it, purchase it via the Althouse Amazon portal.

As for us, on the 24th we'll prepare the traditional Hungarian Christmas Eve dinner of lightly fried fish and a once-per-year-only white wine and lemon soup, accompanied by late-season vegetables. At midnight we shall light the dozens of real candles, on our genuine fir tree -- which is not erected until solstice -- and share a shot or three of "palinka", an apricot or peach brandy, carefully produced at the other solstice when farmers have so much fruit they cannot possibly sell it all.

A boldog karácsonyt kívánunk [we wish you a Merry Christmas} and a delicious deer stew.

Ralph L said...

We got ourselves a Convoy!

Now I'm worried about the group that didn't cross the road. Why?

Humperdink said...

Trumpit lost you? He/she has never been found. Logic escapes this person.

Those deer are all headed for Intersate 80 in Pa (aka the four lane slaughterhouse).

CWJ said...

Bart Hall,

Thanks for your post. I was going to correct the other commenter's impression that this was Sweden, but you did a better more informative job of it. It also gave me a chance once again to practice my imperfect pronunciation of Magyar. We have two Hungarian exchange children, a daughter and a son. Szia!

Phil 314 said...

Are they from Syria?

Phil 314 said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Humperdink said...

PennDot builds five foot fences along the PA interstates. Deer jump 7-8 feet. Build that wall!

tcrosse said...

Sojnos, nem beszélek magyarul.

Nem vagyok Laszlo

Ralph L said...

I wonder how the lead deer manages to stop without a tremendous pileup, or if one trips and falls over stones on its way.

Ice Nine said...

How embarrassing to be the last one.

tcrosse said...

I wonder how the lead deer manages to stop without a tremendous pileup

You mean Rudolph?

traditionalguy said...

Those locals need a border wall. Letting in several hundred caribou at a time to do jobs Hungarians won't do is one thing. But a border wall is the only solution to a massed and sudden migration of an entire hurd.

MadisonMan said...

And no Deer Xing sign!

rehajm said...

I once saw a deer using that game bridge over I-43 between Milwaukee and Sheboygan...

Lyle Smith said...

I have been in a car accident with a deer as well. I was about 9 years old. We did a 360 after it jumped out the woods and we hit it. Her legs were broken so my dad got out and hit her over the head with a tire jack. Then he threw the dead doe in the trunk to take to someone who could use the meat.

Vance said...

Deer are pretty to watch but nuisances for sure. And deadly. Got a case right now where teen driver swerved to miss the deer, rolled the van, ejected a passenger who died. Sad, sad story all around. Only ones getting rich are the attorneys.

Far more deer die via Buick than by hunter, I am sure.

Darrell said...

They need a Deer Crossing sign there.

Clark said...

We had a small doe in our yard just yesterday that had apparently been hit by a car. Her leg was completely broken. We had to put her down. Are there predators in Hungary? What limits the overpopulation of that herd? Here we have some coyotes and hunters and, unfortunately, cars.

Wince said...

"His tail is a little white flag."

Big Mike said...

So Santa gets his reindeer from Hungary? Cool!

Big Mike said...

@MadMan, it was facing to the side, so the deer knew where to cross. Except deer can't read Magyar.

Humperdink said...

Trumpit, can I borrow your bump stock?

AZ Bob said...

Absent a longer hunting season, they should introduce some wolves and mountain lions. Yellowstone Park had a similar problem and they brought in wolves. That took care of it.

Mark Nielsen said...


I'm watching Columbia blacktail deer wander through the back yard right now. I enjoy having them (and the woodpeckers, rabbits, squirrels, etc) around -- it's all part of why we love the Whidbey Island woods. But the deer really are destructive. There's a cost to living with them. Gotta keep a fence around anything you don't want eaten -- even rose bushes.

Humperdink said...

This past summer I had a bumper crop of plums on my trees. Harvested zero. Won't happen next year.

Jim at said...

I love animals. I despise hunters.

Let the record show Trumpit would rather deer die a slow and painful death of disease and starvation, as opposed to healthy herds achieved through proper harvest.

True animal lover, that one.

Ingachuck'stoothlessARM said...

they are on to the 3rd phase of their lifecycle.
1) get born
2) eat 24/7
3) fling themselves in front of a vehicle

Douglas B. Levene said...

Very cool. I've seen lots of deer in New England, but usually only one or two at a time, never a herd, let alone an army of deer. I'm guessing those critters in Hungary don't have any natural predators left.

Unknown said...

I will never again complain about one or two deer on the road in West Virginia.

Rosalyn C. said...

How do they decide to travel and where to go, how do they communicate? Who are the leaders -- the ones who run the fastest? Are they having fun like a marathon?