Case Study: An Extended Deer Family in a Meadow
For two seasons, I observed a regular number of 19 deer that gathered each evening. In the second season, four fawns were born. I watched how newborn fawns were left in the tall grass while the elder siblings and parents grazed through the meadow and forest. I saw how in one stage of development, the four fawns would spend the entire day together, without adult supervision, playing, hiding, and socializing. I saw how the fawns would split up some days, with a pair of buck and doe (a parent pair? Or doe and male sibling?), and watched how they each breastfed with a different doe. Other days I observed how one pair of buck and doe would watch over all four fawns, while most of the 1+ yr old siblings and adults wandered their deer trails. I also enjoyed watching how their spots faded in autumn. The images below communicate some of these observations.