Living with the neighbors
01/03/16 05:22
I know it isn’t polite to spy on one’s neighbors or to speculate about their lives, but sometimes I just can’t risk the temptation. When you have neighbors like ours, it gets difficult to ignore them. We get along quite well with our neighbors, so there is no problem. But I do find myself staring at them out of my kitchen window. I’ve been known to grab a set of field glasses or a camera with a long lens to get a closer view. It’s not exactly what one would expect of a minister, I know.
We have fascinating neighbors. Yesterday there were times when we had as many as twenty or more of our neighbors in our back yard.
Being the 29th of February, the weather couldn’t quite make up its mind. It was a little chilly in the morning, though not unusual for this time of year. When I went outside do do a few chores, I donned a hooded sweatshirt, but didn’t need a parka. A couple of hours after breakfast it started to snow lightly and the snow continued. There were areas of warmth on the ground, so it took a while for the snow to build up, but at times during the day it got to a couple of inches. It was melting as it fell, so the snow settled quickly and barely covered the grass by late evening, though a little more fell during the night. The weather left us in the mood to stay indoors most of the day and we had plenty of chores to keep us busy. I did venture out for a run to the grocery store, but that was about it.
I did, however, take time to spy on our neighbors, especially when they congregated in our back yard. They weren’t too active during the day, either, spending much of it idly browsing for food and lying down to chew their cud.
You did know I was talking about whitetail deer, didn’t you? We have human neighbors as well, but they were all off at work or engaged in activities in their homes and we didn’t pay much attention to them yesterday. The deer, however, are a different matter. Unlike some of the residents of the hills, whitetail deer are relatively static. A deer’s home range is usually less than a square mile. That means that the deer that sleep in the tall grass that adjoins our property are the same ones that were sleeping there last year. Some of the young ones were the fawns that we watched last spring. They are nearly adult-sized now and their colors have become the same as the adults. The coats of all of the deer are garish brown in the winter as opposed to the lighter tawny brown of springtime. There is white on the throat, around the eyes, on the stomach, and, of course on the underside of the tail. They raise their tails when startled and the tails make quite a show when they are running.
Before we humans moved into their neighborhood, the deer population was controlled mostly by predation of wolves and mountain lions. In severe winters there is some winter kill, but the deer are remarkably adaptive. Their complex digestion system allows them to eat a wide variety of plants. When the grass is completely covered with snow, they can survive by eating bark off of trees and chewing leaves and other forage from low lying branches. As people moved into the hills, they didn’t enjoy the company of wolves and mountain lions that much and those species were hunted. There are a few mountain lions in the hills, but they rarely venture into our neighborhood and wolves seem to exist only in rumors in our area. I’ve heard of coyotes or even domestic dogs occasionally killing a young deer, but that isn’t frequent. The main control on the population of deer in our neighborhood is cars on the highway. dozens die as a result of car strikes every year on the stretch of highway running between our home and town. You might think that there would be a bit of natural selection in the process. Those with less street smarts are less likely to survive while those who become road wary live to produce offspring. However, it doesn’t appear that judgment regarding the speed of approaching cars is a family trait among the deer in our neighborhood.
Mostly the deer have adapted to our presence in their hills. Occasionally, when I go out to get the paper in the morning, an adult deer may stomp its hooves and snort at me, but they never have displayed any threatening behavior. They’ll keep their distance, but the adults will allow me to come surprisingly close as long as I don’t make any sudden movements. They can easily outrun me if they want and there is no hunting allowed in the immediate neighborhood. Most of the deer we see in our yard have never known the threat of hunters.
We mostly see does and fawns in our yard. The bucks are apparent only for a short time in the fall. The rest of the season, our neighbors are a community of females. Male fawns leave, sometimes with encouragement of their mothers the summer following their birth. Female fawns often linger with their mothers for a couple of years at least.
I’ve heard a lot of stories about their white tails. One is that raising the tail makes it easy for a fawn to follow its mother when running through the woods chased by a predator. It is true that they little ones are able to follow every twist and turn of a running mother at a very young age. But that is also true of mule deer, with their somewhat smaller tails with black tips. I’ve also heard that the marking keeps the attention of the predator away from the head of the deer, making it more difficult for the predator to know which direction the animal will turn. Whatever the reason, the white flags add to the fun of watching the deer.
So far, we seem to get along with our neighbors pretty well. They have been fenced out of our vegetable garden and we do occasionally complain about their tendency to browse in the herb garden and taste flowers next to the house. Still, it seems like we’ve found a balance that allows us to live peacefully with them. And they are a lot of fun to watch.
We have fascinating neighbors. Yesterday there were times when we had as many as twenty or more of our neighbors in our back yard.
Being the 29th of February, the weather couldn’t quite make up its mind. It was a little chilly in the morning, though not unusual for this time of year. When I went outside do do a few chores, I donned a hooded sweatshirt, but didn’t need a parka. A couple of hours after breakfast it started to snow lightly and the snow continued. There were areas of warmth on the ground, so it took a while for the snow to build up, but at times during the day it got to a couple of inches. It was melting as it fell, so the snow settled quickly and barely covered the grass by late evening, though a little more fell during the night. The weather left us in the mood to stay indoors most of the day and we had plenty of chores to keep us busy. I did venture out for a run to the grocery store, but that was about it.
I did, however, take time to spy on our neighbors, especially when they congregated in our back yard. They weren’t too active during the day, either, spending much of it idly browsing for food and lying down to chew their cud.
You did know I was talking about whitetail deer, didn’t you? We have human neighbors as well, but they were all off at work or engaged in activities in their homes and we didn’t pay much attention to them yesterday. The deer, however, are a different matter. Unlike some of the residents of the hills, whitetail deer are relatively static. A deer’s home range is usually less than a square mile. That means that the deer that sleep in the tall grass that adjoins our property are the same ones that were sleeping there last year. Some of the young ones were the fawns that we watched last spring. They are nearly adult-sized now and their colors have become the same as the adults. The coats of all of the deer are garish brown in the winter as opposed to the lighter tawny brown of springtime. There is white on the throat, around the eyes, on the stomach, and, of course on the underside of the tail. They raise their tails when startled and the tails make quite a show when they are running.
Before we humans moved into their neighborhood, the deer population was controlled mostly by predation of wolves and mountain lions. In severe winters there is some winter kill, but the deer are remarkably adaptive. Their complex digestion system allows them to eat a wide variety of plants. When the grass is completely covered with snow, they can survive by eating bark off of trees and chewing leaves and other forage from low lying branches. As people moved into the hills, they didn’t enjoy the company of wolves and mountain lions that much and those species were hunted. There are a few mountain lions in the hills, but they rarely venture into our neighborhood and wolves seem to exist only in rumors in our area. I’ve heard of coyotes or even domestic dogs occasionally killing a young deer, but that isn’t frequent. The main control on the population of deer in our neighborhood is cars on the highway. dozens die as a result of car strikes every year on the stretch of highway running between our home and town. You might think that there would be a bit of natural selection in the process. Those with less street smarts are less likely to survive while those who become road wary live to produce offspring. However, it doesn’t appear that judgment regarding the speed of approaching cars is a family trait among the deer in our neighborhood.
Mostly the deer have adapted to our presence in their hills. Occasionally, when I go out to get the paper in the morning, an adult deer may stomp its hooves and snort at me, but they never have displayed any threatening behavior. They’ll keep their distance, but the adults will allow me to come surprisingly close as long as I don’t make any sudden movements. They can easily outrun me if they want and there is no hunting allowed in the immediate neighborhood. Most of the deer we see in our yard have never known the threat of hunters.
We mostly see does and fawns in our yard. The bucks are apparent only for a short time in the fall. The rest of the season, our neighbors are a community of females. Male fawns leave, sometimes with encouragement of their mothers the summer following their birth. Female fawns often linger with their mothers for a couple of years at least.
I’ve heard a lot of stories about their white tails. One is that raising the tail makes it easy for a fawn to follow its mother when running through the woods chased by a predator. It is true that they little ones are able to follow every twist and turn of a running mother at a very young age. But that is also true of mule deer, with their somewhat smaller tails with black tips. I’ve also heard that the marking keeps the attention of the predator away from the head of the deer, making it more difficult for the predator to know which direction the animal will turn. Whatever the reason, the white flags add to the fun of watching the deer.
So far, we seem to get along with our neighbors pretty well. They have been fenced out of our vegetable garden and we do occasionally complain about their tendency to browse in the herb garden and taste flowers next to the house. Still, it seems like we’ve found a balance that allows us to live peacefully with them. And they are a lot of fun to watch.