If deer are eating the berries, there is a good chance its an edible for people too.

It is definitely a Elaeagnus species by the looks of the fruit. Not the common Autumn Olive. Is it sweet and juicy? I would be interested in obtaining some seed.
-Mark Lee, Seattle

My first thought was Autumn Olive, E.umbellata. I see them here and there throughout the woods in my native central AL.

please do not assume a fruit or plant is edible to a person just because another animal is eating it. ie. you cannot feed grapes to dogs, but people eat them. people do not eat buckeyes (to my knowledge). people do not eat the berries from poison ivy, but birds do.

I'm with fairy toadmother. Believing that just because a deer eats it, you can too, is a good way to end up getting sick.

In a case like this, I wouldn't trust my life to fellow GardenWebbers (much though I love y'all!) Don't eat these things without having a local professional identify them. Take the pictures (and maybe a sprig with leaves and berries) to your county Cooperative Extension agent.

it SURE looks like an Elaeagnus species! thanks!
and I third toadmother's comment!
it's like with chocolate, we LOVE and can't live without chocolate but if you give it to a dog/parrot/etc they could even DIE!

Sorry to give the wrong answer about possibly being edible! As to chocolate, it contains high amounts of caffine and with that, small animals can die of heart failure or complications due to it being a very strong stimulant. My grandmother used to be able to tell a poisonous mushroom by wiping one on the back of her hand and touching her tongue to it. If it was anything bitter or odd, she would say it was poisonous. Not sure what else made up her decision though as she has passed (92) on many years now. Probably the best way to determine if something is good or had is to get some books on wild growing plants that also identify them as being edible. Without many color photos on a book, its pretty much useless.

It IS an Eleagnus species, we're just squabbling about which one. Regardless, it's edible - and probably fairly tasty.

toadmother - some people DO eat buckeyes. I had a long-running discourse with an now-deceased long-time nut grower, and he told me of many people he'd grown up with or encountered through the years who ate buckeyes(predominantly A.glabra) with no problems whatsoever, though he could never bring himself to do so - "Fine," they said' "that leaves more for us." I even had the toxicology laboratory here assay several samples for the presence of 'aesculin' the toxin ascribed to them, and we could never detect any.
Still think I'll stick to my pecans & hickories, though.

luck p- really?! i guess we should file that one with the rest of the urban legends.

Don't know that I'd put it in the urban(or rural) legends category so quickly, but my friend did bring up the question(s) of:
1)what analytical methods were used when buckeyes were proclaimed to be 'poisonous' - how accurate were they, back in 1910(or earlier)?
2)Did whoever did this assay sample a large selection of nuts at varying degrees of 'ripeness', and did they sample just the nuts, or the nut, leaves, stems, roots, and the groundhog caught up in the roots?

From a veterinary standpoint, most of the 'buckeye' poisoning we encounter is in early spring, when the various Aesculus species are among the first things in the forest to 'green up', and if you have cattle running in woodland/forest settings, and they're hungry - they will eat the fresh new foliage and become poisoned.

after all, the cashew is toxic until roasted, right? and then there is the cashew apple.