Recently, I posted a short note on the
Cycle of Life about an old Mule Deer who lost his fear of humans and came up to the Bungalow while guests were in residence. He found a comfy spot under one of the pine trees to rest and eventually died. Well, just a couple of weeks later as I was stepping out of the trailer one morning I was greeted with another aspect of the cycle of life, mothers with babies. A small herd of female Mule Deer with their young had come up to the Guest House at the
Painted Pony Resort to browse on the newly leafed out Red Push trees. Upon seeing them, I carefully backed into the trailer to grab the camera for some photographs. Although only 10-15' away, I was not seen and did not spook the animals catching the images posted below. It has been a hard spring this year with little rain, but colorful sunrises and sunsets indicating atmospheric moisture, and the local wildlife were consuming everything in sight on the estate. The rabbits were climbing into the
Ephedra to feed as well as eating bark of plants in the front garden and several small pines were stripped of needles by the deer. In spite of this hardship it is nice to see physical evidence that the cycle continues and even though there was little rain the wildlife on the estate manages.
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| Female Mule Deer and young |
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| Babies and the cycle of life |
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| Browsing on newly leafed out foliage |
very cute; glad you let them browse
ReplyDeleteBrowsing on the big trees is fine, it's just when they strip the front garden that I get upset. But it was nice to see babies wandering about after dealing with the deer that died.
ReplyDeleteBruce, I thought mule deer were bigger. There's a herd north of Rodeo, probably same herd, of 20 or so. Mule deer or cous?
ReplyDeleteGood question. Both are similar in size and overall coloration but the distribution of color differs. The best clue is the tail. Mule deer have a black tipped tail (like those in the photograph) while the Coues deer has a white fringed tail. See this link for more more details http://www.coueswhitetail.com/general-description-taxonomy-evolution-and-genetics/
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