One of the delights of my back yard is being able to look outside just about any time to see some sort of wildlife. Often, it is birds that I see but there are insects, mammals, amphibians and reptiles, too. Wooded areas in and near our neighborhood are being clear-cut, pushing the animals out of their long-time homes and they don’t have many places to go. So our yards become a refuge, at least when the residents don’t chase them away. I am fine with non-human species in my yard, so they sometimes rest here, get a drink from the pond and hunt for food. Among the most graceful visitors are the white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus), who have been among my favorite mammals ever since I got to know one in particular, Schatje.

The past couple years, the resident does who most often traversed our streets had fawns, but they were mostly producing male offspring – five bucks to two does by my guesstimate. Since the availability of food is diminishing, as is the available natural territory, it may be that this will keep the local population somewhat limited as there will be fewer does to give birth.

In spring and summer, bucks do not visit my yard as often as does and their fawns but during breeding season, they put in more frequent appearances. One of the two daily visiting does (“Mama”, recognizable by a mark near her eye) fled this year whenever they arrived. At one point, her twins (born this past spring) began coming around with an older brother who was born last year (“Sweetie”; at left). Mama eventually stopped coming at all and I suspect she was perhaps hit by a car.

Sweetie has sometimes been challenged by one of his younger brothers and then he does a little practice “jousting” with him. He never pushes hard, just enough to give the younger button buck something to resist.

At the start of November, I was quite surprised to see a very small fawn that still had some spotting turn up in the yard. The other deer tried to drive it away but it hung around waiting for them to leave and then would lick up whatever remaining bird seed was still on the ground. The little one was never accompanied by a doe and I had to assume that the mother had died and the young one is an orphan. I had read that late-born fawns often do not survive as they haven’t had time to build up body mass and reserves to get through a winter but this little deer seems to be very resilient and persistent.

The persistence seems to have paid off and resulted in a winter gift. Sweetie and one of his younger brothers seem to have “adopted” the fawn! They not only allow the young deer to be around them when they look for bird seed on the ground; they are also grooming the orphan! This seems to me to be unusual behavior for bucks, but I’m happy they are doing it.

This development has just warmed my heart.

In the meantime, the remaining older doe has only come by occasionally, together with what I assume is her daughter from last year. They do not stick around when the larger bucks put in an appearance. The other day, the largest buck entered the yard holding up his left front leg. The injury does not prevent him from walking. When a younger adult buck came by, it turned out that the injury also does not prevent him from engaging in some jousting as well.

The “duel” between the two adult males that I witnessed did not seem very serious, perhaps because no does were in sight or perhaps because the healthy buck was still being careful not to challenge the larger deer even though he had an injury.

They did not really push one another much but spent more time entwining their antlers – which seemed pretty dicey to me as the points came close to their eyes! That didn’t stop their activity, however.

Eventually, the two parted, quite amiably it seemed, and each went his own way. It was a fascinating “performance” and kept me quite entertained. And I remain grateful that these beautiful mammals come by regularly, sometimes resting against the back fence and sometimes displaying behaviors that keep me learning something about their lives.