Today I was looking through the archives and decided to stay with the deer theme for this post. Four or five years ago I set up a game camera on a piece of property that I own. The main purpose was to photograph the numerous deer that travel through my small sliver of land. The property included some long-established deer trails within its 75 foot width. The lot is about 1 acre on the very edge of a rural abandoned town.
The town itself was in a flood zone so they basically moved the town out of the flood zone with just a few residents remaining. My property is literally the first lot as you enter the old abandoned town. The property connects to about 100 acres of bottom ground woods that floods a couple of times a year. Bottom flood zone land makes great deer habitat because many nut trees grow in bottom ground. Pecan, hickory, oak, and walnuts are abundant in those ecosystems.
The primary fall food protein source for deer around here are acorns. Acorns small, large, or in between fall from oak trees which are found in abundance in bottom ground areas. I have a small creek that separates my property from the 100 acre woods next door. The deer use the creek for water when the creek is holding water. They cross freely between the woods and my lot. Over the years I have added food plots and fruit trees to make it even more appealing to the deer.
My goal was to get some deer to hang around so I could get game camera pictures/videos of them to study their behaviors and lifestyle here on the edge of town. They are almost urban deer that close to civilization. The property has many other natural food sources that the deer love. There are two giant pine trees that drop pine nuts yearly to the deer's delight. The deer scrape the area up with their hooves looking for the little morsels that they cherish. For grazing they have rye grass, clover, and even poison ivy vines they nibble on.
(Click the DTube link above for a short video of a doe crossing the creek into the neighboring woods if you are interested. This clip has an audio track included also.
Some of their favorites are blackberries, mulberries, and pawpaw fruit. I planted a small apple tree for them as well. Apples are a very interesting part of a deer's diet when they can find them. Apples help the deer digest their food better enabling them to eat more acorns in the fall adding to their winter fat reserves. I always knew deer loved apples but until recently didn't understand why. That is one of the reasons nature fascinates me so much. Incredibly there are so many seemingly minor details that are an integral part of the bigger picture once we began to unravel the smaller mysteries.
Nuts are a great protien source with lots of fat content and are needed in the fall to bulk the deer up for the coming harsh winter. Bucks especially load up before the rut because they literally can't think of food during that time period each year. That is why you will see many nice bucks in early fall out in farmers fields gorging themselves for the upcoming rutting activities. There will be lots of contests and challenges amongst the bucks to show dominance in the herd.
I have taken some time here to describe the environment of the property so I can explain the fawn and doe cover picture for this article. There is a large dominant buck that has claimed my lot as his own and he frequents there often leading does and fawns there to eat, drink, and be merry lol. A dominant doe also claims this area as her fawning place. The past few years I have got fawn pictures on the game camera. The main series of fawn photos was from two years ago. Last year I kept the camera out so as not to disturb the doe and her new fawn this year.
Click the DTube link to watch a short dominant buck video
A doe will look for an area she feels is the safest possible for her fawn or fawns; twins are quite common. I have even seen several triplet fawns over the years. I have let the land go back to nature since I have had it so the weeds and small shrubs cover the lot to about a 3-5 ft height as the smaller saplings are beginning to take over and will start shading the tall weeds out soon. I am letting many oaks, mulberry, and pawpaw trees grow while cutting out other less nutritious varieties.
Click DTube link for video
https://d.tube/#!/v/natures-way/khn8glpu
Click DTube link to watch fawn nurse
This year my plan is to put the game cam back up but only check it every two weeks or so to give the doe her privacy while being able to hopefully enjoy watching another fawn begin its great adventure of life. Thanks for taking the time to view this blog post it is much appreciated as always and until next time keep on Steemin' Steemians ...