A white-tailed deer fawn catches sight of me on a Madawaska Valley cottage road on Saturday, July 3. © BCP 2010
Well, I didn’t find this lovely white-tailed deer fawn (Odocoileus virginianus) in my Beach backyard, although I have plenty of colleagues and friends who live just a little further east, out towards the Scarborough Bluffs, who do, in fact, have deer nibbling at the low branches in their backyards. I guess that’s a mixed blessing for avid gardeners.
To see this particular fawn, I had to be out and about in the byways of our beautiful province, as I was over this past weekend. Lucky me, to find myself in the Madawaska Valley, surely one of Ontario’s most blessed corners.
As I was making my way down a quite heavily used cottage road, I happened upon this fawn above and its sibling. (With the long lens on my camera I couldn’t get both of them into the same frame because of the distance apart they were standing.) Apparently both the fawns and their mother have been seen quite often around. (I didn’t get a glimpse of the doe.) It’s not that they have no fear of people, as you can see in the two frames I have put up here.
In the frame above, the fawn has just seen me. Then, in the frame below, the fawn’s startle response. Ack! Leave superfast! Little fawns have no doubt whether to fight or take flight.
With a flash of its white tail, the fawn takes off to the safety of the deep woods by the side the road. © BCP 2010
© BCP 2010
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