The Hidden Life of Deer, page 4
When the beautiful doe was preparing to leave, she would move around a bit at first, looking here and there, flicking her tail as if she felt unsettled, perhaps because she was picturing the path she was about to take. Few things are predictable in the natural world. This is an Old Rule, and the deer know it. The thicket where you browsed while on your outward journey could hide a predator on your return. Everything can change in a split second, and every sound or scent, every flicker of movement that you catch in the corner of your eye, can tell you something. The Old Rule demands that you stay in the moment—always, always in the moment. So if the beautiful doe was nervous, she might have been preparing herself to guard her followers—her grown daughter, her little fawns, and perhaps six or seven others who might trail behind her rather than taking their own directions, in part because of her status, in part because of her ability, and in part because she surely owned the region’s best shelter area and might let them take shelter with her. I’m not sure that she always did. No matter how many others followed her away, when she came back the next day, often just her daughter and fawns were with her. But not always. Sometimes an entourage followed her. No doubt they were her older children and her grandchildren.
One day while eating corn, the beautiful doe flung up her head and kept it up. All others noticed, and also looked up. She then pressed her lips tight together and drew an extremely long, deep breath, as if pulling in scent from far away. For a fraction of a second, she held her breath, as if considering the scent. Then she stamped her foot. Whatever she found in the air, she didn’t like it. But she needed more information. So she walked toward the scent with great determination, then stopped and stared at the woods with her nose up, her neck stretched, her ears far forward, and one hind leg set outward, a posture deer assume when experiencing real concern. The others joined her until all were looking. She stamped again, and again, then suddenly she wheeled and bounded away in the opposite direction, her tail held high. The group around her exploded, and all went bounding after her, not in single file as deer often travel, but in a big, tail-waving mass. In seconds, all were gone. I grabbed the binoculars to try to see what had frightened her, but saw nothing. You didn’t have to be a deer to know that something bad was there, though. The beautiful doe could see right through the woods, and smell what she was looking at. And whatever it was, it was she who had noticed. No wonder others relied on her.
Another group of five deer—two large and three small—was also easy to identify, or they were after I managed to distinguish them as a unit. Sometimes they were trailed by three others, making a group of eight, but the five were separate often enough to be a group of their own. These deer became Group Beta, and here again, the biggest doe was the mother. The second doe would have been her grown daughter. The fourth and fifth deer, the small ones, were her twin fawns born in 2007. But the third deer was a mystery. This one was bigger than the twins, and smaller than the grown daughter. To me, this said that the third deer wasn’t anyone’s littermate. Also, the third deer wasn’t the same color as the others. They were dark in their winter hair. The third deer was conspicuously red, almost in summer color. Yet this mysterious youngster was strongly a member of the mother’s group, right in tight with the others.
There seemed to be two possibilities. Maybe Deer Three was male, the triplet of the two small fawns. Male fawns are substantially bigger than female fawns at birth, and stay bigger throughout their lives. Sometimes Deer Three acted like a male, chasing other deer, for instance, sometimes striking at them with a front foot, which might have been a gesture, except that Deer Three sometimes hit the victim on the back, which hurt. Sometimes Deer Three reared up and struck at another deer with both front feet—right-left, right-left, right-left—in rapid hammer blows like a boxer. The blows didn’t connect but were threatening. Both males and females do these things of course, but all in all, for one so young, Deer Three of the Betas was the most aggressive deer to visit the feeding area, and others often moved away when they saw this youngster coming. Deer Three was also bold, and might run ahead of the group as they walked around in the field, often far ahead of the others. Deer Three would even lead the group as they went to investigate something worrisome, such as the turkeys as they emerged from the woods or our cat, who once again had escaped the house and was sharpening her claws on a tree.
The mother of the Betas didn’t seem to have quite as much status as the beautiful doe of the Alphas, but she was highborn nevertheless and seemed serene about it. Perhaps her lawless little fawn had taken this as encouragement. Yet I couldn’t help but feel that something was a bit off. In keeping with the customs of many other ungulates, most young males the size of Deer Three form loose associations, at least for short periods. An aggregate of six young males—the Rho Group, four of them the same size as Deer Three—would have been perfect company. But no. Deer Three stayed with the mother.
Yet this was not conclusive proof of gender, so I searched carefully with binoculars every time I saw this third deer, looking for the whirls of hair that predict antlers. I didn’t find them. True, these whirls are very faint and often don’t develop until later in life, and I am sure I have missed seeing them on many a forehead. Still, the forehead of the third young deer was as smooth as silk, a doe’s forehead. That didn’t mean that Deer Three was a doe, but it made me wonder. Might Deer Three be unrelated to the others? Might that explain the red summerlike coat so different from the others? If so, could Deer Three have been adopted?
Very occasionally, a doe will adopt an orphaned fawn even if she has fawns of her own. So it is possible, however unlikely, that the leader of the Beta Group adopted the third deer. In the summer of 2007, a doe was killed by a car not far from our house. Possibly she was the birth mother. If this were the case, an orphaned youngster, probably in need and unattached, had been allowed to join the Betas.
The leader of the Betas was a very nice deer. She seemed kind, unlike some others. When her group came into the field, they walked in an easy, almost casual manner, showing few signs of stress or strain, although taking all the usual precautions. Rather than follow in single file, all the young deer might cluster around the mother, as if that was where they want to be. Now and then, the twins would frolic. Now and then, they would touch noses with their mother. She seemed to be very present to all three of the young ones, gently aware of them, as if she welcomed them beside her.
One day as her group neared the feeding area, Deer Three chased one of the twins, who ran behind the mother. The mother quietly raised a forefoot and gently touched the aggressive youngster under the chin—a strike gesture, but greatly modified. The youngster wavered slightly and seemed a bit humbled, and then left the twin alone for a while, as if in respect for the mother.
I saw the Beta group often. They came and went from woods to the east of the field, and I think they sheltered on the side of the ridge on top of which, a few years earlier, I had surprised a doe in her bed under a hemlock. Perhaps the doe I surprised was the mother of the Betas, when she herself was young. That slope is perfect for deer. It’s out of the wind with thick evergreens for shelter, and is right above a little swamp from which faintly warm air sometimes rises and cold air drains down and away. It’s like the hill I live on, which was a farm long before my father revived it. On my hill, too, cold air drains away from us, and windborne frosts hit above us on the mountain. We are the last to lose our garden due to frost. This was the wisdom of the old farmers—before they chose the sites for their farms, they found out where the deer stayed. My hill is so perfect for deer that they still use it at night when we’re asleep. The next ridge to the east is no different, except that its slopes are forested. It made me happy to think that this interesting family of Group Beta might stay there.
Mostly the Betas were a group of five, but often enough they seemed to be a group of eight. This was because of the Deltas—a doe and her two daughters who sometimes trailed the Betas and sometimes may have shared their shelter. However, their more permanent place seemed to be to the southeast near the large swamp. Possibly they sheltered in the warmer microclimate above it. The only disadvantage of that microclimate was that most of the trees were hardwood and did not offer the protection of an evergreen grove. There were some evergreens, but not many. If the place were better, Group Alpha would have owned it. The Deltas might also have sheltered in evergreen brush at the edge of the swamp.
The two Delta daughters were different sizes, which meant they were not twins. Yet they were almost the same size, which was confusing. They were always with their mother, and always ate what and where she ate, so a difference in nourishment didn’t seem to explain this. They were also quite different in appearance. The smaller one had a long, pointed face, and was very graceful, even for a deer. The larger one was just like the mother, if not quite as big. One day it came to me that the birth dates of the daughters might be 2005 and 2006, as female deer stay with their mothers for undetermined amounts of time. It also meant that none of them, including the mother, had a surviving female fawn from 2007. All three were unassuming deer, coming and going without much fuss, minding their own business, often joining the Betas at the edge of the field to approach the feeding area, often waiting for the Beta doe to enter first, then following close behind her. I then began to wonder if the Beta doe might be the Delta doe’s mother. That would be why the two groups merged so often. Since most groups of deer, although almost certainly related, seemed nevertheless to be distinct and separate, I attributed their closeness to the kindness of the Beta mother.
If during that winter I was asked which deer seemed most significant, I would never have mentioned the Deltas. Yet it was these deer whom I was able to watch the longest. When spring came, they were still with the Betas, or more or less with the Betas. But by the middle of June, the Betas had vanished, all five of them. Deer have winter ranges and summer ranges, and since it didn’t seem possible that something bad had happened to all five of the Betas all at once, I assumed that they either went higher on the mountain or else went to the woods at the west of the road, a popular deer habitat.
But the Deltas stayed put. Right through the month of June I saw them every evening just at sunset, calmly grazing in the field, their dark winter fur long gone, their red summer fur shining in the grass. I hoped to learn if any of them bore a fawn. All of them seemed in good condition and likely to be able to carry a fawn, especially the mother. If I had helped to enable this by feeding them, I was happy.
One afternoon in January after many heavy storms, a new group of five deer appeared at the feeding area. Every deer was looking thin by January of that winter, but the biggest of these four—a tall, dark-colored doe—seemed thinner than most, her neck shrunken, her hip bones showing under her skin. She stayed the longest, eating, eating, even after the others heard an approaching motor and went into the field. Thus the tall doe was last to leave when the snowplow came up the driveway. But, of the five, she ran the fastest, probably because she was vulnerable. The local predators take the slowest, weakest deer. Perhaps she pictured a predator in the woods, watching her departure. No use chasing me, her manner said. You won’t catch me.
These deer became the Tau Group. I was very moved by them. With the tall doe traveled two grown daughters, evidently twins, and two very small fawns of the spring of 2007. These fawns were by far the smallest deer who came to the feeding area, and were dangerously small to survive a New England winter. But they didn’t seem to know how fragile they were, or what hunger and the winter storms would do to them. On their first visit, they played together, frolicking around behind their elders as if all deer lived forever. Later in winter, hunger and the cold were telling on them. They seemed tired, moved more slowly, and never played or frolicked.
Why were they so small? Perhaps they had been born late in the year, suggesting possible problems with their thin, dark mother, such as delayed estrus. Or perhaps their mother had not eaten much during the past winter when she was carrying them, so they might have been undernourished in her womb and then were born tiny. All this suggests poverty. The Tau Group was humble. They knew they weren’t important. Sometimes they would come right up to the edge of the feeding area, but then stand there together and watch the others eat. Sometimes the fawns would try to make their way to some of the corn, but other deer would chase them. After that they would stand behind their elders and watch. Even then, they looked at the food with ears up and eyes wide, as if they still were hopeful.
As far as I know, I saw the Tau Group about eight times. On their first visit, only the hungry mother ate. On the second visit, they all had an opportunity to eat. On the third visit, the grown daughters ate while the mother and the fawns looked longingly from the sidelines. Around this time I began to wonder why, if the other deer worried them, they didn’t come at night, when the others weren’t looking. Food was available, I saw to that. But then I realized how bitterly cold it was at night, below zero, and colder still with a strong wind blowing. Unless these deer sheltered very nearby, which they didn’t, the journey would have cost them far too much. The twin fawns in their tiny bodies could have lost what little warmth they had, and died from exposure. However, this also raised another important question, which has no easy answer. Since they lived fairly far away—half a mile to a mile, as I believe I discovered—how did they know about the corn? I’m not sure there’s an answer for this, at least not one that a person could fathom.
I know the Tau deer lived through most of the winter because I saw them early in March, one afternoon as I was driving to town. I was half a mile north of my house when the leader of the Tau Group crossed the road in front of me, going south. Back in the woods was a low, forested area much favored by deer, and I wondered if she sheltered in there. That could explain why we saw her so seldom and also why others prevented her from eating. Perhaps she lived too far away to belong among the others. This, of course, is why the experts tell you not to feed deer. My corn was luring this vulnerable family away from their winter shelter. But the Tau mother was so thin and her fawns were so small that she perhaps did what I would have done with my children under similar desperate circumstances—risked everything on the chance that some of us would live.
It was a sunny afternoon, about 20˚F after a very cold period. Perhaps she was taking advantage of better weather for a foraging journey and might have been heading for my house. I looked around for the rest of her group. They were in the woods at the roadside, about to follow her. Then a strange thing happened. As any deer would do, the two older daughters began to turn aside, as if to run away, but then they didn’t, and instead they looked right at me. So did the fawns. They looked and looked, right into my eyes. I thought they recognized me. They might easily have recognized my scent, which would be wherever the corn was, and they could have known the scent and appearance of my car, which was usually nearby when they came. Perhaps one of these features told them something. Perhaps the feature spoke of food, and of living through the hardest time of winter. At any rate, they looked at me until I worried that I was keeping them from their leader, separating their group, and I didn’t want to do that, so I drove away. I don’t know if they came to the feeding area that day. I was on my way elsewhere and had to keep going.
I also don’t know what became of the Tau group. After that, I saw only the mother, one of the grown daughters, and one of the fawns. It seemed only too likely that the others didn’t make it, surviving the worst part of winter only to die in early spring. The survivors stopped visiting my field and feeding area before I stopped putting out corn, but by then a certain amount of browse was available, so I told myself that these three, at least, were still alive, if elsewhere.
Why did I feed these animals against all advice? Because we live in the same place, because they were individuals, because they had relatives, experience, a past, and desires, because they were cold and hungry, because they hadn’t found enough to eat in the fall, because each had just one life. One spring before I began feeding the deer, after another terrible winter when our house was dark in the daytime because snow had drifted over our windows, I found three deer carcasses near the house—their long winter hair spread in characteristic circles about four feet wide with a few bones in the middle. One was very near the house—not thirty feet away on the south side of a stone wall. Perhaps coyotes came upon her. Or perhaps she simply lay down in the shelter of the wall and died there from starvation and exposure. After that, perhaps coyotes found her. By morning, snow had covered all traces of this very sad event, or I would have seen something. I did not report these carcasses to the game warden (only because I didn’t think to do so), but every year such carcasses are reported, and when the bones are examined, the marrow is red instead of white. Healthy marrow looks like lard or suet. Red marrow means that every last gram of fat has been used up. Deer with red marrow are too weak to keep going. They lie down and die of hunger and cold.
Once in 2007 a blizzard began early in the morning and lasted all day, bringing over a foot of snow. The turkeys were miserable. When they tried to walk, they would sink in, then would try to climb up on top of the snow, only to take a few more steps and sink in again, a constant, exhausting, calorie-expensive struggle. They seemed to have little hope of getting to the feeding area, so they gathered loosely in the middle of the field where snow began to cover them. In the early afternoon they decided to roost, hours before they normally would do so.
