First, I’d like to officially welcome my new subscribers that signed up for my nature blog e-mail subscription at this past weekend’s Artfest Midwest art festival in Des Moines, Iowa. I enjoyed meeting and talking with you at the show and I sincerely hope that you find my blog posts both interesting and educational. If you ever have any comments or suggestions, please let me know. My e-mail notification list is a private list that is never shared with anyone else. At any time, if you wish to unsubscribe from my blog notification list, just go to the blog page and you can manage your subscription options from your “profile”. But I hope you don’t! I work hard at writing and publishing informative and interesting posts. With the housekeeping issues out of the way, Welcome!
A couple of weeks ago, I published a post about a White-tailed Deer doe and her 3 fawns, that I found on a nearby prairie (if you missed it, here is a link: “SuperMom”). Since that time, I have wandered this prairie several times, but have not run across the foursome. The area where I initially saw them is difficult to reach, requiring a downhill hike through dense brush. I have intentionally stayed clear of that area since then, fearing I would unduly frighten them if I tried to maneuver through the dense prairie habitat. So, I have decided to leave it to fate … if it was meant to happen, it will happen. And if it doesn’t, then I at least had one wonderful encounter!
But today’s post also is about a brand new encounter with newborn fawns … one that happened just yesterday!
While I was hiking the prairie yesterday morning, my wife was enjoying 2 small fawns and their mother, right in our backyard! We live on 10 acres in rural Cass County, Missouri, with approximately 5 acres of wooded land. Ever since building and moving to this location, we have frequently seen white-tailed deer, including some fawns. Well, yesterday evening at dusk, the doe and her 2 fawns were again seen in our backyard. Since I was home, I grabbed my camera and walked out the front door and quietly walked around to the side of the house, capturing these photos:
While I was photographing them, one of the youngsters decided it was time to nurse:
We had a very similar situation, just two years ago. At that time, a doe with 2 fawns were routinely seen in our backyard. After a month or so of visiting us, mom felt comfortable enough to “use” us as babysitters. She would bring the 2 fawns (getting larger, but still spotted) by in the morning and leave them while she wandered off into the woods. Then, between 5:00pm and 5:30 pm, she would return and pick up her babes. Not sure, but it looks like the same scenario may be playing out this summer! The same mom? Maybe. How will this end? Stay tuned … hoping for more photo opps with this young family!
Oh, and during yesterday’s outing, I captured some more interesting wildflower images, as well as some interesting prairie creatures. I’ll post those in upcoming blog posts.