Tuesday, October 13, 2015

Speaking of deer...


Last evening as I returned from a meeting, what do I see but one of the summer fawns I mentioned in yesterday’s post.  This sweet, stupid young deer was by itself, calmly cropping grass along the edge of Roundtop’s main parking lot, right in front of the lodge.  Presumably, its four regular cohorts knew better than this poor soul, which has yet to survive a hunting season of any kind.

Roundtop doesn’t allow hunting around its ski area, though it does elsewhere on the mountain.  This little soul is likely in more danger from cars than hunters at this point, but it’s never good when a wild animal is so unwary around human surroundings.  So many dangers—cars, hunting not far away, being spooked by any one of a thousand things into something solid that could injure it, to name a few.  Last evening, fortunately for this little one, none of that happened. It continued to browse the grass until full dark and I could no longer see it.  Full dark, by the way, was not far away; I had to brighten this photo quite a bit, which is why it doesn’t look so good.

This morning, rain showers descended but before that happened the impending rain clouds produced a very attractive sunrise.  As I was driving to work, the sunrise looked even more interesting in my rearview mirror, but I was already off the mountain and on my way and couldn’t take advantage of it any more.

4 comments:

John "By Stargoose And Hanglands" said...

There's very little (legal) hunting for deer in this country but most of them seem to be very wary anyway. It's certainly difficult to get near enough to photograph them in the wild.

Scott said...

Carolyn: Many of the deer in my preserve are so used to being around people that they are heedless of the dangers of hunting season. Of course, we're trying to reduce the herd, so I can't be too sorry for them, but they need to act more like the prey animals they are.

Carolyn H said...

John: Pennsylvania has more deer and more hunters than nearly every other state. Lots of farm fields and edge habitat so the population is huge. Hunting is about the only way--other than releasing some large predators--of reducing the car vs. deer collisions. They do a lot of damage to the forests and the fields--but they are still pretty and nice to see.

Carolyn H said...

Scott: maybe we should release some predators...only slightly kidding.