When I saw the doe headed toward the backyard with a fawn at her feet, I zipped back in the front door and then back out the back door toward where they were headed. Kind of “intercepting” them.
When they came around the corner of the deck, it wasn’t “they.” It was only the fawn, and when it saw me— saw my shape, to be more accurate— it galloped toward me. And what I mean by galloped is only in its head. It’s new legs were utterly wonky. Still, the fawn picked up speed— again, only in its head, but you could tell that’s what it was thinking. The little thing kept coming toward me with something absolutely signaling “intent,” and it caught me by surprise. I walked backwards to the house, watching the fawn and waiting for the doe to show up. From the deck I finally watched them both appear. (Also, I moved that piece of tin out of the way.)
At the end of the film, they turned around and headed back where they’d come from, and I snuck up on the pool deck to have a look. The doe immediately saw me and scoped me out, but decided to stick to her plan. She left the fawn to hide itself in a bedding spot in the general area she’d assigned it and headed off to browse out front.
I’m much further away from the doe than it looks in the left hand photo above, about 20 feet away. As she left, I watched over the edge of the deck while the little fawn looked for a hiding spot on its own. From up on the deck, I filmed the entire 45 seconds it takes the fawn to nestle itself into “hiding,” because I was impressed with its persistence. Also, the end where it finally pops out of sight is pretty cute.
After the fawn got settled, I checked that mom was still busy out front and then went and carefully snapped a photo.
That first night and the next, the doe slept on the bank visible right out the living room windows, and I googled things like “omg do does freaking leave their fawns alone overnight,” and “holy-moly do does leave their fawns alone for a whole day?” I mean, come on. Picture it. The way you raise your child is you take your one day old infant outside and hide it in a bush. That’s pretty gangster. Again, these animals are the places they inhabit.
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