Elvis Has Left the Building

It was an overcast morning (23 September), and I could not be sure in the low light what I was seeing so I grabbed the binoculars to check. The day had come; I had been expecting it for a few days. The duck food pan still had food in it; Apple was gone. The pan was not totally full so they had eaten last night, but Apple had not returned before daybreak. The fawn had finally followed his mother off, or she had decided it was time and kept him with her. Apple’s tracks had been ranging farther and farther. He was taking on more and more of the habits of his mother becoming more crepuscular in nature. Beautiful little Apple is growing up and is out in the world at his five week birthday!

Why leave at this time? I do not know. May be the visit from Quince and dark doe unsettled Apple’s mommy and she took him elsewhere. Perhaps the visit tugged at the need for a herd, and they rejoined the other does. Perhaps Apple made his own mind up and stayed with his mom. They have been back since to eat, lick at the salt, and drink from the lake, and Quince and dark doe have been back too-I have seen their tracks. I cannot tell if all four deer are coming to the lake together-I cannot distinguish if the track sets were made at the same time or hours apart. Some days it is just Apple and his mommy other days the tracks includes Quince and dark doe.

The imaginary sign hanging over the backyard that read, “SSSHHH fawn sleeping!” is gone. The backyard now is mowed, I can go about making noise with impunity, and I can go where I want without fear of disturbing Apple. Yet, as I occupy the yard fully it now feels so empty. Apple is growing up and all is as it should be…bon chance, mon ami.


Pam Croom © 2008

Continued...Why is there a fawn in my yard? Or where you are born and biology.

PART II Why she chose my yard might also have to do with who she is. Whitetail deer sexually segregate. Does live in matriarchal kin groups (the merry band of sisters) that spend their lives on undefended ancestral home ranges. A matriarchal society may have fawns, daughters, mothers, and may be even grandmothers or great grandmothers. Does with some experience may disperse a short distance away expanding the ancestral range. I suspect there can be several sub-kinship groups occupying roughly the same home range. Ozoga refers to the kin groups as matriarchal societies, which may not be quite the correct terminology from the behavioral biology use of the term, but society, in its common usage, is a very apt descriptive term for these groups. Bucks group in fraternal societies mostly of unrelated bucks with group membership being quite fluid. Does establish their fawning grounds within the larger ancestral range. Social status of a doe within a society, in large part, is determined by her breeding success. The matriarchs are experienced, mature, dominant does who are six years old (or more), probably great grandmothers, and kin group leaders and, are the ones who secure the best fawning ground. A doe new to motherhood will more likely get a less than optimal fawning ground (often next to her mother’s fawning ground). More than likely a young doe will not return to her first fawning ground for her second pregnancy. Senior does may lose their dominance rank in the hierarchy and may have to find new, less than optimal, fawning grounds. Young does generally only fawn a singleton for their first pregnancy. Similarly, very old does may only birth singletons like youthful dewy-eyed does. There has been a severe drought for over a year now and poor environmental conditions due to the drought could cause otherwise healthy mature does to give birth to singletons instead of twins. Both first-time breeding does and senior does will fawn in the later part of the birthing season being later by a few days, even weeks. Young does are inexperienced and less attentive than older does. So who is Apple’s mommy? She is most likely not an established matriarch, although possible a matriarch might have a singleton after a hard droughty winter, she probably would not have chosen my yard (despite the amenities like duck food it is probably not the luxury suite of fawning grounds). She is probably very young or very old since she gave birth to a singleton on less than stellar fawning grounds and that the birth was a few days after the end of the prime birth season.

But which one: young or old? She sticks close to Apple, which may indicate she is older. She seems very worldly-her sneaking skills are very good-almost silent. She also learns very fast; she has learned very quickly that I am not a threat and she no longer bolts away from me when I get to close she just sneaks off nearby. She is very skillful in getting the bird feed out of the little holes in the feeder. She will walk into a semi-enclosed space for yummy begonias. All those skills seem to me to be indicative of an older doe.

After Apple entered into his transitional phase like clockwork he started becoming more active using about two-thirds of the edge natal grounds. Apple on Thursday (9/4/08) for the first time ventured to the east side of the dock; he squirted under the dock (because of the drought most of the dock is out of the water) probably in a crouch judging from his tracks. With that adventure, he has now explored about three-quarters of the cover area. He has yet to explore the yard outside of the scrub/tree margin; I expect that will start next week or later when he starts following his mommy more. At eighteen days old he could pretty much out run any predator for a short distance if the need arose. He should have started nibbling some foliage, still; he will not be able to survive without his mother’s milk. He will start becoming active at night some now, and in a few days he should be come more active in general. This is the time that he should start interacting and bedding with a sibling. I still have not seen a sibling; I cannot believe that there are two in that small an area of cover, and that I have not found it yet. Of course, the twin could be very shy and good at hiding. There could be possibly be a twin at the end of the lake across the road in the pine thicket, but as mommy spends all day near Apple, and it would require her to be exposed for part of the way on feeding trips, I doubt there is a twin farther away. As for Apple being a he…well I do not know. If his mother is young or old statistically then the odds are on Apple being male.

How much longer will he be in the yard? I am not sure, but my best guess is they will leave when he is eight weeks or so. Although his mother could move him somewhere else at anytime if she feels threaten or the food situation degenerates, she will probably not move the youngster unless the situation warrants it. She might relocate him if he explores too far beyond the safety of cover. Apple will start following his mommy about some in a few days when he turns four weeks old, but he probably will not follow her around a significant amount of the time until he is at least eight weeks when he will start to travel and also to bed with her. That seems like a natural time to expand his range and for them to leave the yard. Time will tell…

Check out online:

http://www.outdooralabama.com/watchable-wildlife/what/Mammals/Ungulates/wtd.cfm A brief natural history of Alabama whitetail deer.

http://www.outdooralabama.com/hunting/game/deer/deerbook.pdf

A not so brief book, Biology and Management of White-tailed Deer in Alabama by Chris Cook and Bill Gray of the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources

Division of Wildlife and Freshwater Fisheries (beware this is a large pdf file-not for the light hearted if you have dial-up).

Check out on the bookshelf:

Deer specifically:

Seasons of the Whitetail a four book series: Whitetail Autumn, Whitetail Winter, Whitetail Spring, and Whitetail Summer by John J. Ozoga, Willow Creek Press (1997)- Contains a lot of scientific research made readable for science and non science types.

Mammals in-general:

The Wild Mammals of Missouri by Charles and Elizabeth Schwartz (the Missouri Conservation Department Gods!!!), University of Missouri Press (2001). A terrific guide (not pocket sized) to mammals and pertinent beyond Missouri-for much of the Midwest and eastern US. The drawings of paws are very nice for trackers as they are exquisitely rendered and lacks the problem that some photos can have of lighting, fur in the way, and photos of preserved or dead specimens in questionable conditions. Life histories of the animals are given beyond the couple of paragraphs of most guides. It contains skull drawings, dental formulas, and pertinent natural history information. I love this book.

Wild Mammals of North America: Biology, Management, and Economics edited by JA Chapman and GA Feldhamer, Johs Hopkins University Press 1982. I would describe this book as a science encyclopedia. The book offers concise scientific literature reviews describing as the subtitle states- biology, management, and economics of each species. This book is more appropriate for science types, but a great entry into the world of science lit for non science types.

© Pam Croom 2008

Why is there a fawn in my yard? Or where you are born and biology.

Part I

Apple is now a few days past his three-week mark of life. His birth date may seem rather late to many, but here in Alabama, according to the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, the majority of deer births occur from late July into mid August, but any where from April to November is game. John Ozoga, in his book ¬Whitetail Summer, relates that researchers have designated three phases of a nursing fawn’s life. A fawn’s first phase is the seclusion phase which last the first ten days and while they weigh less than eleven pounds. The next phase is the transitional phase, which last approximately from ten to fifty days and within a weight range of eleven to thirty-three pounds. The last nursing phase is the juvenile ruminant phase where the fawn is aged fifty to one-hundred days old and weight range of thirty-three to fifty-five pounds. Apple now is long beyond the seclusion phase and into his transitional phase.

In the seclusion phase, a fawn moves little; what activity he carries out is during the day when most predators of fawns are inactive. The fawn stays hidden, which is its main defense against predation. This part of a fawn’s life is when it is most vulnerable as it may not be able to out run predator. The mother does not stay with the fawn in order not to draw attention to the youngster. A newborn fawn is nearly scentless if the mother stayed next to the fawn she would leave a substantial scent trail for predators to follow. The mother will run away from the area the fawn is in if disturbed; this tact may draw predators away from the baby. At this stage, the fawn is utterly dependent upon the mother. He will nurse two may be three times a day. The doe will groom him, and during the grooming session, she will nuzzle the fawn’s rump to evoke a voiding response of the bladder and gut and then she will eat the waste to minimize scent around the fawn. Apple during his seclusion phase only used two bedding sites; one just beyond the button bushes in the grass by the lake edge and about ten yards away, the one up on high ground by the ditch. I found his tracks only to those two sites bed sites.

In many references, the size of a fawning ground is reported as twenty to thirty acres. For my doe’s fawning site, this seems unlikely. West up the hill going up Green Mountain is a neighbor hood giving way to thick, steep, woods. Abutting the mountain to the south are some fields mixed with housing. Directly east and north of my yard is quite an expanse of housing. Directly south are a few houses that turn from house to corn, and soybean fields that extend eastward to the lowland area of the Flint River (the farm field area, sadly, is slated for a school and housing district with two hundred plus houses). There are pockets of trees in there and some edge habitat and a few yards that probably offer up yummy browse in an area that would be twenty acres, but it doesn’t seems a large quantity of high quality deer browse and fawn cover habitat. Where Apple’s mommy chose to have him is perhaps a fifteenth of an acre of edge habitat and quality cover (quality deer browse flourishes in edge habitats).

So why is the north side of my yard so appealing? Cover for one thing. Browse is another, of what is available, it is pretty good and includes landscape plants (my begonias and tomatoes, located near the house, are gone now). The neighbor’s fences fronts the lake, but leaves a corridor that they keep mowed with a narrow scrub margin next to the lake providing passage, cover, and browse. This year a dead spruce tree opened up the sky and the apple trees had a bow-busting bumper crop, and her tracks regularly lead up to the tree where she is browsing on twigs, leaves, and fruit. The over grown garden offers browse for the doe, and an overgrown adjacent field also contains some eats (deer are selective browsers and generally do not eat grass except for tender new shoots). Across the street to the south are a large garden to pick through, a small apple orchard, and a large fig bush for desert. Of course, the doe is packing away a pound or two plus a day of the ever-present duck food, and if she gets really hungry she is deft at working the bird feeders for food. Importantly, the lake’s waters-edge presents another rich transition environment for browse, water (lactating does require supplemental water daily), and a protective barrier. Always keep in mind that whitetail deer are ecological generalist-in other words they live pretty much everywhere and have learned to live where humans live. Predators are limited. No coyotes traipse about the yard. The yard has not been part of a fox’s range since the cheeky fox lived here two years ago. Despite a young grey fox attempting to steal BBQ this spring; he has not seemed to hung around and made the yard part of his territory. Bobcats are certainly down in the lowland area about the Flint, but they do not habituate my yard. Dogs rarely are seen roaming about. Our new neighbor has an affable yellow lab who is pretty oblivious to the world (and the fact there are deer next door). When they moved in they installed a wireless fence and the lab is restricted to his yard. However, the mere presence of his scent may keep predators such as fox out for a while, at least until they figure out the dog is not a threat.

Why not choose the low land habitat down the hill at the Goldsmith-Schiffman preserve to fawn; it is great deer habitat-lots of edge, great browse, cornfields, water, and cover? Coyotes, foxes, bobcats, and feral hogs found there are threats to fawns to say the least. You might wonder how pigs are a threat; feral hogs will eat about everything including stumbling upon a small hiding fawn and eating it (they would not hunt them down, but if they found one they would probably eat it, as they would ground nestling baby birds, and small turtles etc.). Hogs also very effectively compete with deer for browse and mast like acorns. Another reason not to fawn down there is that there already are many deer there.

to be continued...

© Pam Croom 2008