All Alone
I spotted this little white-tailed deer fawn in the park behind our house on Saturday. It was a day of intermittent showers, hence the wet look. With its mother nowhere in sight, and the fawn all alone for hours, my wife and I wondered if it had been abandoned. But a quick bit of research revealed the following on a National Wildlife Federation blog:
"There is a strong probability that you did not find an abandoned fawn. Female deer hide their newborn fawns in tall grass or brush and move some distance away to feed to avoid drawing predators to their offspring. With the proliferation of deer in suburban areas, sometimes this happens right in our own yards. The fawn simply waits in hiding until its mother returns. Soon, the fawns will be strong enough to follow the does and run from predators, and they no longer need to spend hours alone in hiding."
Well, even though this spot wasn't exactly "in tall grass or brush," the fawn did spend most of its time lying still, though it did get up and walk around occasionally. And while we didn't see it happen, we think that the mother must have come and retrieved her baby; when we looked outside shortly before nightfall, the fawn had disappeared.
All Alone
I spotted this little white-tailed deer fawn in the park behind our house on Saturday. It was a day of intermittent showers, hence the wet look. With its mother nowhere in sight, and the fawn all alone for hours, my wife and I wondered if it had been abandoned. But a quick bit of research revealed the following on a National Wildlife Federation blog:
"There is a strong probability that you did not find an abandoned fawn. Female deer hide their newborn fawns in tall grass or brush and move some distance away to feed to avoid drawing predators to their offspring. With the proliferation of deer in suburban areas, sometimes this happens right in our own yards. The fawn simply waits in hiding until its mother returns. Soon, the fawns will be strong enough to follow the does and run from predators, and they no longer need to spend hours alone in hiding."
Well, even though this spot wasn't exactly "in tall grass or brush," the fawn did spend most of its time lying still, though it did get up and walk around occasionally. And while we didn't see it happen, we think that the mother must have come and retrieved her baby; when we looked outside shortly before nightfall, the fawn had disappeared.