HOW DEER USE THE PROPERTY
In the photo above, yellow arrows indicate paths regularly used by deer into and within the property. There are straight shots in through the driveway and along the west and north boundaries. On the river side of the house, deer enter and exit at the two corners of the property. The red spots are regular shelter and browsing locations. It looks like a lot, but they’re not all everywhere all the time. Picture just a doe and two fawns out there. That’s the most common scenario. And it’s their habitual behavior with those paths, hidey-holes, and browsing areas that makes it possible to manage what I do here with what they do here.
This time, the yellow arrows in the upper left inset are grape vines. There’s an L-shaped, double-row section about ten feet from the house and a section along the river bank. All together, it’s about 60 feet of vines. The deer not only eat here regularly, but use the vines for shelter. I’m particularly enamored of the photo on the far right. It’s a section of the vines under which does rested and hid from the heat this summer. Imagine living on the ground, in mouth’s reach of your food supply. And don’t miss the little fawn butt sticking out of the hidey-hole under a Nanking cherry bush in the middle pic. The photo labeled 2 is located in the vines on the bank, at one of the corners of the property, a hidey-hole in which the deer bed up and through which they can pop in from and out to the river.
Larger photos above are numbered to correspond with inset pic. Lower left photo shows a path off the driveway along a caged blueberry patch and into the back yard near its southern boundary. Deer in the center photo is standing in that path, staring through the blueberry cage. Far right pic (5) shows a path on the north side of the property that runs west to an area comprised of two old paddocks, marked by the curvy arrows in the inset pic. That path to the paddocks pic is a favorite though it’s not quite that dramatic in real life, and there’s actually a section of it that caused an incident for the deer. We’ll get to that.
Next: Backyard Photo Tour >>> (might load slow)
mostlyjoy.com 
Leave a comment