Friday, July 23, 2010

The Baby Deer Are Arriving!

I took a drive out to the refuge to see if the baby deer had been born and after quite a lot of searching this is what I found. I could tell by looking at the mother deer, that some of them had delivered - and I saw big deer tracks and little deer tracks so I knew there had to be baby fawns somewhere - but there were not easy to find. The mother's however are easily spotted early in the morning.
This little guy appears to be a bit older than the twins.

And the bucks are in velvet. This appears to be a young buck. He was pretty small. Smaller than many of the does.

This doe appears thin to me, which made me suspect a fawn nearby, but I never saw it if there was one.

And this doe appears to be getting close to her due date.

And as beautiful as I think deer are this picture shows why I don't think I'd like to be one. I wonder if ticks were around before the fall of man - or if the deer have Adam and Eve to thank for this pesky problem.

These doe are thin - but if they have fawns nearby, I didn't find them.
I did find fawns, though. The first I saw were a group of three running through the woods. I was unable to get a picture because they were simply too fast for me. The second one I found was the larger one above. It was well hidden in a thicket of some kind. And - then I stumbled upon the twins while I was walking back to the area where I had parked the car. They were as curious about me as I was about them and I got several pictures before I stepped on a twig and made a little too much noise and they darted.

And to my students - sorry, I didn't call to see if anyone else wanted to go. I hadn't planned on going. I just woke up early, and it was cool - so I decided to take off and it was too early to call.

2 comments:

  1. They are pretty! I love the next to the last one! It looks so loveable!

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  2. So cute! I love seeing deer. My parents live out in the middle of the woods and it never gets old spotting a deer before it darts off.

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