How to photography animals at dawn?

I'm trying to figure out what settings to use for my Nikon D3000 around 6-8pm in wooded or shaded areas. I tried photographing deer this evening, but it was wanting to use flash-Dont really want to scare them away! Turning my flash off makes my photos blurry, grainy, and colorless. Any suggestions?

Added (1). Thanks fhotoace that is a big help. I have a 55-300 lens I'm using now, and a tripod.

You are missing some understanding of the fundamentals of photography

People who shoot animals at dawn and duck, do so with there tools.

* A long lens, 200 to 300 mm
* A fast lens, f/2.8
* A good blind, down wind of where the animals graze

Something you will also need a either a tripod or monopod to steady the camera when shooting but it is not necessary if you are shooting at shutter speeds of 1/320th second or faster To shoot at such shutter speeds, you need to set your cameras ISO to 1600 or faster.

You can't remove blur (caused by camera or subject movement during the exposure), but you can reduce noise (you called it grain --- grain is an attribute of film) by changing the luminance setting in Photoshop or Lightroom.

When shooting in the shade, you will see less colour, so in Photoshop, use the level tool to set the black threshold, white threshold and make fine adjustments using the mid-tone slider.

That should do it.

My guess is that you have some entry level lenses which have an aperture of f/5.6 at their longest zoom range. As you are beginning to see, shooting wildlife can become very expensive due to the lenses that wildlife and nature photographers typically use.

Here is the list and as you can see, the cost of them may make your knees weak

* 200-400 mm f/4
* 300 mm f/2.8

Both cost over $5, 500 each if you were to buy them new. This is one reason many wildlife photographers buy good used lenses.

There's one lens you may find usable and that would be the AF-S 70-300 mm lens. I have friends who use that lens while birding.

The most important thing you can learn about in wildlife photography is the subject. Knowing the habits of the animals you are photographing. Things like: What is the subjects preferred habitat, food, weather, or time of day. Deer for example are crepuscular, meaning that they prefer the twilight hours. They like patches of forest adjacent to open fields in which to feed. During the day they tend to tuck deep into the woods where they can be tough to find. As the sun goes down they will make their way into the nearby fields to feed. When it is completely dark they migrate back into the forest. Only to head back out to feed as the sun comes up. When I was starting out I had a hard time finding good tips to photographing animals. I soon realized that wildlife photography is very similar to bow hunting. You need to set up in a spot were "targets" are likely to wonder close enough to you that you can make an effective shot. Look into hunters techniques for scent cover and strategic locals. Also everything that Photoace said before. In my experience animals don't seem to notice when a flash goes off. I guess they just assume it is lightning…