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O.T. They'rre Baaack


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As I type this, there's a good sized doe in my back yard, nibling on some cedar branches. There's probably a few others out there too, but I haven't seen 'em yet tonight. Last night, there was three of them. At one point last night, I walked into my dining room with the lights off, and surprised one that was standing on my patio. She just froze, as did I. She was roughly 20 feet away. We stared at each other for a while, then I ever-so-slowly backed away, so as to not spook her.

We've had a pretty tough winter this year. Lots of snow. Usually when the deer are coming out of the bush to feed on cedar hedges, and decorative bushes, it's a sign that they're not finding food in the woods. I certainly hope that's not the case this year, but three years ago, the Quebec Fish & Game Dept., said that over 50,000 deer were lost to starvation. That was a particularly heavy snow-accumulation period. The Fish & Game people, were flying in bales of hay by helicopter, to try and save as many as they could.

Apparently, when food is scarce, the deer tend to gather in herds. These herds then trample down the snow, allowing some of the deer to feed on the underlying grass. The bucks will chase off the fawns, and the older/weaker deer, so that the strongest can survive. The wildlife biologists said that they were finding deer hanging from the forks in branches of trees. Apparently, the deer are standing on their hind legs, trying to nibble on tree branches, but sometimes, their back legs sink through the snow-banks, and they get hung-up. Very sad.

The good news is, the ones I saw lasy night, and the doe I saw tonight, all looked fairly healthy. We're forcasting unusually warm weather tomorrow, with rain over-night. Hopefully, that'll expose a bit of browse for them.

Four years ago, I saw as many as 10 deer, standing in a 30 foot circle, 10 feet from my living-room windows. I have four floor-to-ceiling windows in that room, and my cats would lay in front of the window, watching the deer. The fawns would have a staring-match with the cats. Kinda fun to watch  actually.

smileyhappy:

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Nice post Bobby. I enjoyed reading about the local widelife in what sounds like a tough winter - quite a contrast to summer in Australia. Sydney where I live, has had a couple of plus 45 degree days. That's celcius so about a 113 degrees fahrenheit. That'd thin the snow out :smileyhappy:

Love the image of the cats checking out the deer!

Cheers

 

 

 

 

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There's a small family of deer (I'm guessing around 8) that live in a undeveloped brushy triangle (a couple of clicks per side) on the river. The amazing thing is it is surrounded by surburbia. This is a place where I go train spotting and it's only about 4 kilometers from city center (population about 200k). I call then urban deer.

Speaking of deer. We did a christmas production show of "miracle on 34th street". During load in one of the scenery/prop guys was attaching plastic lawn reindeer to a sled with drywall sinkers. On of my co-workers shouted out "hey look, that guy is screwing bambie!". Everyone pretty much lost it for a couple of minutes :-). Decent show BTW.

I wonder if I'll get bleeped?

cheers

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Art Flood wrote:

Nice post Bobby. I enjoyed reading about the local widelife in what sounds like a tough winter - quite a contrast to summer in Australia. Sydney where I live, has had a couple of plus 45 degree days. That's celcius so about a 113 degrees fahrenheit. That'd thin the snow out 
:smileyhappy:

Love the image of the cats checking out the deer!

Cheers

 

 

 

 

Art, I was watching with great interest and concern, the Australian wikd-fire and ultra-high temperatures situation on BBC news. I hope the worst is over now, but I did see where the weather forecasters had to come up with  new colors for the weather maps, to indicate where extremes in temperature were occuring. Red used to show the hottest temperatures, but now, they have to use purple and magenta for the extremes.

 

Regarding the cats and the fawns, yeah, it's funny to watch them. My little dog also used to be fascinated by the deer. He never barked,,,, never a whimper,,, but he'd shake like a leaf with excitement. Every now and then, he'd decide those deer didn't belong on "his" lawn, and he go out to chase them off. Off course, with the deep snow, his little legs would sink in the snow, and he wouldn't make much headway. The deer on the other hand, just trotted off slowly,,,, no panic. :smileyhappy:

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JRBLE wrote:

There's a small family of deer (I'm guessing around 8) that live in a undeveloped brushy triangle (a couple of clicks per side) on the river. The amazing thing is it is surrounded by surburbia. This is a place where I go train spotting and it's only about 4 kilometers from city center (population about 200k). I call then urban deer.

 

We're in a small town; 10K pop., Although I'm close to the center of town, there are mountains and forests right behind my property. My driveway opens up on one of the main street in town, and the regional hospital is right across the street, so it's not as if it's secluded. The deer don't seem to mind the traffic at all. If they're browsing, they don't even look up as cars go by. Most of the cars don't even see the deer, because the deer only come out at night. One night however, a police cruiser was stopped at the intersection across from me, and they noticed the deer. Well, I guess they were surprised to see so many deer in such a small area, and they had their spotlights on, watching the deer for quite some time. No panic from the deer whatsoever.

It's only the does and fawns that browse on the lawn, There's always a buck nearby, but he stays well hidden amongst the trees. He lets "his girls" get their food, but when he figures it's time to go, he calls to them, and off they go. There are times when some of the fawns are so busy eating, they momentarily get left behind, so I go out there and coax them along. One of them actually "challenged" me one night. She just stood there staring at me, twenty feet away, then she'd repeatedly stamp her front hooves on the ground, as if to say "bring it on, baby". Funny stuff. :smileyhappy:

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I live in central wisconsin in in a town called Plover.

I have a one acre plot and lots of tall pines in my yard.

We have whitetail deer that hang out in town.

I feed the birds and throw out cracked corn and generations of deer are so dam tame they

will come right up if your sitting on the deck within 25 feet.

We have had some cold snaps of 15 to 20 below zero at night and they have been coming

to my feed area big time.

I have heard about the winters in Canada and 40 below zero is just to dam cold for me.

I spent a few years up through Fargo and up through North Dakota and those are some brutal winters

up there.  The people up there are just amazing and alot of fun.

Good times.

It was always warm in our hotel rooms though!

Ground hogs didnt see their shadow today and were looking forward to an early spring!

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Pro Sound Guy wrote:

 

 

I live in central wisconsin in in a town called Plover.

 

I live in Madison now, but I'm originally from New London... about an hour east of you.

Around here, there would be mass starvation if the herd was thinned out during the November hunting season... I'm damn sure they have a calendar though, as soon as Opening Day comes, they're no where to be seen. The rest of the year, I could've walked up to most of the whitetails in my back yard.

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