White-tailed deer: a brush with elegance

Deer by the path

This has been a remarkable week. I received a writing assignment from a regional magazine. I spent most of the week working on a feature story for publication sometime this fall. With some other things that came up this week, I am fairly brain-fried, but exhilerated by the interviewing and creative process. I am out of practice and need to work more efficiently, but that will come.

So today’s post will be big on visuals and short on narrative. Wednesday afternoon I managed to go for a walk in the conservation area. On the way home, look who I met. Recently here I mentioned another close encounter with a white-tailed deer at our back fence, but that time I did not have a camera on hand and had to borrow a photo.

Bounding away

As the two does were bounding away I noticed two fauns uphill in the shadows, also fleeing. They were the height of large dogs still with some faint spots. The animals were not particularly alarmed, however. The larger female turned to watch from a short distance. I cannot claim any experience in interpretting a deer’s conscious processes, but she seemed curious.

I spoke in quiet tones, addressing her as the queen of the forest she was. Then she turned, tail still raised in mild dismay, and strutted away with a disdainful flick of each hind hoof.

Queen of the forest, fawns in the distance

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *