Bovine Avoidance

I was out scouting on Friday, not Lord Baden Powell type activity, but out scouting the route for the next Race of Six Friends. It was a glorious day, and the world was very much at rights. as I rolled along a long, flat, quiet back country road, I could see a steer in the distance. He was standing on the road, and given the traffic through the area, was presenting no danger to either himself, or any vehicular traffic.

I heard the message alert on my phone go, so, given that there was little else to do, bar pedal and muse, I took my phone out and checked it.

The message was from a friend in town, asking what I was up to. He had no idea that I had fled the confines of the city and was on a jaunt around the countryside. I decided that photo of the steer would be an appropriate answer. I carried on pedaling, riding, holding the phone up steadily to get a nice landscape shot of said beast.
Just as I was about to touch the screen to trigger the shot, I saw a rush out of the ditch to my left, and there, previously unnoticed by me, sprang another steer who had taken fright at this sudden appearance of a spandex clad monster.

Steer number two rushed across the road, and prompted a rapid grab of the handlebars from me, I missed the photo opportunity also. That would have taken some explaining to all and sundry as to how I came to surf the road, if the beast had collected me.

All was not lost though in the bovine pictorial stakes, as about another kilometre on, another steer grazed the long acre placidly, and I was able to nab a passing shot.

It was a day for rushing animals, as within an hour of my steer avoidance I was almost knocked from my perch by a dashing turkey. Not only do turkeys have the most ridiculous run and flight, their "Gobble, gobble, gobble" would rate as one on the more amusing birdcalls. So much so that Mikeal the Onanastic will imitate one with glee and without inhibition. It is disturbing to hear a grown man pretend he is the festive dinner.