Fawning over our new garden resident
There’s a baby boom happening in our northwest Austin neighborhood.
Yep, it’s fawn season. This one’s mom has been leaving him in the front garden, in a raised bed along the driveway, tucked into soft Berkeley sedge or silvery woolly stemodia, while she goes off to forage.
She comes back to collect him each evening. While he waits for her return, he lies very still and watches warily when we come outside. Starting the car almost makes him bolt, but his overriding instinct is to stay hidden.
Of course he’s not really fooling anyone, except our dog, Cosmo, who has yet to detect him. And we don’t encourage Cosmo to explore out there right now.
Until Baby gets bigger and starts following his mom around, we tiptoe around the driveway and slink in and out of the car. Don’t disturb the baby!
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I know they can do major damage to a garden but it’s hard to look at that face and wish him anything other than a long life.
They have a way of weaseling into your heart. —Pam
Yes, I get so frustrated by all the damage they do to garden, especially when I look at my poor hostas chomped down to bits. Then I remind myself that I was the one for fed that deer in my yard in the first place!
Knowing how you feel about his type I think you’re being very good.
Ah well, you know, the children are innocent. —Pam
You’re certainly Bringing Nature Home! Beautiful addition to your garden.
It just shows up, Betty. But I guess that’s the point. 😉 —Pam
Most of my plants are deer resistant, however, because I love them so much, I have a few the deer get to nibble on.
Those fawns are so beautiful and vulnerable! Thanks for sharing.
You are a kind person, Dina, to share with the deer so willingly. —Pam
Silly Mother. She’s fortunate you are so gentle with her baby.
Ah, she knows we’re all softies, I guess. —Pam
Awwwwww….I want one!
Only the fawns, Heather. You really don’t want the mamas and papas. —Pam
Well, so many have concrete statuary, but you have the real thing! Precious life, guarded by humans from coyotes. This doe is smart.
Funny how rabbits seem to do the same, leaving their nests up close to the house for protection. I just had a horrible showdown with a bunch of crows that had discovered a rabbit’s nest and were puling the babies out to devour. I had just driven through a grocerydrive-thru, when I happened upon this horrible scene. I stopped the car and went to rescue the screaming babies. The crows were extremely intimidating and the poor Mother rabbit was watching from a slight distance. I felt outnumbered, because as soon as I rescued one baby, and left him in-between the building and my car, they were pulling out another, screaming in pain and trying to escape. When I managed to get that baby released, I went back to see where the first had gone, and he had disappeared. Some of the crowns had flown off, but others were eyeing me from the grocer’s roof. While it is possible that he had just hopped off, I think they may have been eating the first up there. Creepy. And, of course now I worry that the crows will recognize and get even with me later…. (shudder) They are so smart and really, when close to them you realize, BIG.
Oh no, what an awful thing to witness, lwc. Nature at its reddest. So sad! —Pam
Awwww, how sweet. A good thing you don’t have deer edibles out front.
Plants that get chomped get moved to the back garden. The rest are able to withstand a little nibbling, if it happens. It’s the antlering in the fall that drives me nuts. —Pam