The Fawns Among Us

I got this shot on Hogan today. There actually were three of them with one mother and I've seen several other families wandering about like this. The little guys look like they are no more than a couple days old but I know very little about this and want to get that on the table up front. For instance, I thought deer gave birth in the spring so as to give the youngsters some months to get enough weight on that they can manage their first winter. So why is it happening now?

I saw another set of triplets on Lake Shore but one of the fawns was bleating piteously because it was being rebuffed by the mother (I presume as it was trying to nurse her). In fact, all the other adults in the group tried to run it off. Somewhere back I heard that the females have only two teats and if they bear three or more young one is nudged out and starves. Does anybody know anything about that? Are any of you readers hunters or outdoors people?

Anyway, the whole reason for this rambling is to re-state what the obvious: these youngsters are even dumber than their parents when it comes to moving out of the way of an oncoming car. Whereas you can more or less assume that an adult deer moving across the road left to right will continue that way (still, don't count on it and even if they do keep your eye to the left as there may easily be a group of them), these fawns just prance to and fro with no plan whatsoever. And since way too many of us are driving faster than we should anyway, this makes for a likely roadkill scenario. I don't know about you but if this happened to me I'd feel absolutely crappy. It's bad enough to hit a grownup deer but seeing a Bambi under my car would ruin my day big time.

So yeah, slow down and watch the roadside more closely right now. But also remember this is their turf; we came here AFTER they did and should show a little respect for their timing if nothing else.