January 2, 2023 there were tracks in the driveway, so I slapped on some snowshoes and walked the property to figure out where the deer had come from and where it had gone. Left photo above shows where it came onto the property around a little snip of fencing on the river bank. The fencing doesn’t block access; it’s just a bit of leftover fencing at a corner of the property where deer are known to enter and exit. You can just barely see a slip of unfrozen river along the bottom of the bank in the upper part of the photo. Pretty deep snow to trudge through as some of the tracks show.
Left: raccoon. Center: raccoon and deer. Right: raccoon using deer prints to navigate the snow?
Following the tracks, I could see the deer had walked up to the woodshed and turned around. It had walked toward a path into the backyard that was full of deep snow…and turned around. It had walked toward a well used summer bedding area, also full of deep snow, and turned around. Then the tracks headed into a couple shoveled paths toward the chicken coop.
I miscalculated thinking the tracks were older than they were, and when I got toward the paddocks area, I realized the deer was back in the shrubs and trees in the left pic, above. It was a fawn. I didn’t want to run it off if it had found a good shelter or browse spot, so I just walked off without a photo of the fawn itself. When I walked back out there later, it was gone. Above right pic is a spot where it was apparently pawing around in the snow. It had also pawed around in a spot by the chicken coop where there’d been abundant clover during two summers the deer were here. Conclusion: It’s likely one of the fawns who had spent time here summer 2022. It appeared to be alone, so possibly a little buck?
Left: This hawk was enjoying a meal out by the paddocks the fawn was near. It let me get pretty close before it took its food up into a tree to finish eating. Pic on right has the first little snips of sun we’ve seen here in what seems like forever. Lasted a couple hours. Oh, well. It’s still early in January, and we’re expecting some big snow melt. I also expect that will mean more deer sightings, as travel will be easier throughout their range.
Second January Update
Welp. That “big snow melt” added up fast and caused some problems around the area. A couple buildings collapsed in town and a shop extension collapsed on my property.
But… new deer poop out there, too! Onward…
March – May Update: March 2023 – May 2023 Update
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