New Birth in the Family (so to speak)

AlArchie · #1 05-30-2008, 10:44 PM

About half an hour ago I was sitting on the couch watching TV, when I noticed something in the field just across the road out back. I got the binoculars out and took a look.........a doe had just dropped a fawn! She was cleaning it up and shortly it got to it's feet and began nursing. We watched for several minutes, then I went next door and got Strelchecks. About then, Gizmo barked and the two of them moved on into the hollow, but Fran Strelchek and I went out and they were still there, just a ways further into the field. The little fawn was just hobbling along on really shakey little legs.

Quite a back yard we have here!!!!

Al

Paul_Guraedy · #2 05-31-2008, 07:13 AM

Al, I spent my professional life as a park ranger. We now live in the middle of nowhere with woods and fields all around, not a house in sight. Yet, I have never witnessed a doe giving birth. I assumed that they always went into the deep woods. You were very fortunate.

AlArchie · #3 05-31-2008, 07:57 AM

Paul, about 30 years ago, I was on patrol down along the Middle Branch of the Ontonagon River, when I noticed a deer in a large clearing along the river bank. She was obviously in distress so I stopped to watch, and just then she dropped a fawn. I spent the next 10 or 15 minutes watching as she cleaned the little guy and began nursing, as soon as she coaxed him to his feet. When they were done, the fawn lay back down in the marsh grass and mom wandered off into the more dense woods behind them.

I've never seen this again till last evening........the same Wonderment came over me, though, 30 years later.

Working this desolate area of Michigan has given me some very unique opportunties. On the other end of the same spectrum, I got to wittness a coyote take a full grown deer down, something I really had sort of dismissed as local hunter's railing against the coyotes. Ol' Wiley had that deer pretty well beaten as we watched, but we did intervene as he began disemboweling the still live deer.....we shot the deer and when we returned several hours later the pack had completely devoured the carcass.

I'm going to have to assume that both animals were desperate. The deer for it's life and the coyote with hunger to tackle such a large prey.....he reallywas getting the sh** kicked out of him, and it was hard to tell which was bloodied worse, untill the deer finally went down. The whole episode took only about 5 minutes.

I've been truly blessed to have worked these northern woods as a patrol area, and have been wittness to many natural wonders over the years.

Al

Mottles · #4 05-31-2008, 11:53 AM

What a wonderful moment and gift from nature.
Kathy

bbeery · #5 06-01-2008, 12:42 PM

Seeing a fawn born twice in your life time must make the Giness world record book! With all the thousands of hours I've spent in the woods, I've never seen a doe give birth....I've seen'um mate, right under my deer stand in Georgia. That buck died with a smile on his face :-)))