The first part of this began seven days ago, when I was out poking around at night, as is my wont, and spotted this one tucked in among the trees in a wooded portion of the property:
Okay, I didn’t spot it, it was already spotted when I found it. But in case it isn’t obvious, this is a white-tailed deer fawn (Odocoileus virginianus.) The funny thing about this is, it was about a meter from where I’d found one last year, three days away from that anniversary. Is it safe to suppose this is a fawn from the same doe as last year? Or is this simply an ideal spot?
You can see the little nubbins of antlers there too, confirming this one is a male. Unlike last year, I wasn’t bearing the camera and had to go back and get it. I got this one clear frame, then as I was adjusting the aperture, the fawn burst from its location and bounded off into the foliage, surprising me a little. Typically, they get put down in one spot by the mother, and know to wait there until she returns – this is often not long after birth. This one, however, seemed confident enough to dart away, making me feel a little bad, but I knew it wouldn’t go far and mom would be back soon enough, so I left the area quietly.
That wasn’t enough for a post, however, and I had this image lined up with a few other odds and ends to come up this week. Meanwhile, we’ve been seeing a doe coming by to scarf corn semi-regularly, and we’ve watched for a fawn to be accompanying it, but no dice. So this morning when I saw it down there, I checked and found no fawn, and watched her wander away. Normally I would have let her slip from sight around the house, but she was heading towards the end where the garden was, and it’s rained hard enough the past couple of days that the deer repellent has probably washed away, so I wanted to make sure she wasn’t going to stop and snack on our plants.
She paused, right near the tomato cages, and flicked her ears around as if unsure of what to do next. And then the fawn came bounding out of the thicket (a dozen meters or so from where I’d seen it,) coming up to its mother and savagely butting her in the abdomen before beginning to nurse.
Now, here’s the deal. I was watching from the guest room window, no camera in hand – that was up in the upstairs bathroom attached to the tripod, aimed at the pond edge where, like, everything goes on. So I had to run up and get this, then slip quietly out the front door and around the edge of the house and camellias, hoping not to spook the pair. I was successful in this, but the tomato cages were directly between us, spoiling the view, so I instead went through the house and out onto the back deck, slipping into view carefully. I was in a yellow shirt and outlined against the sky from their vantage, with the shutter of the camera plainly audible. And she really didn’t pay attention to me.
The doe is actually massaging the fawn to get it to urinate/defecate while nursing, since they’ll tend to hold it at this age – you can see housecats do the same thing with their young kittens.
The doe got a little restless after a few moments, taking a few steps forward, and the fawn took that opportunity to wander around just a wee bit. But mom hadn’t gone far and settled back down, so it returned to nursing.
I’ve been after shots like this for a while now, having just missed an opportunity four years ago. I even tried a little video, but handheld with the long lens, it’s shaky as hell – no time to get a tripod or even a monopod. Mostly, I was counting on the still frames. and while mom is staring right at me here, even as the camera clattered away, she soon enough turned away to scout for other possible threats, perhaps because I was holding still enough, and Junior resumed nursing.
In fact, this was how I left them – having gotten enough frames, I slowly backed out of view, even as she watched. The Girlfriend was observing from the same guest room window, able to tell when the doe caught sight of me from her behavior, and also that she wasn’t too concerned about it. We’re wondering how long it’ll be before the fawn is weaned and we see them both out foraging together – we’ll certainly be watching. But for now, that’s another one off the list.