Winter wonderland One
(Over the next four Sunday’s I shall be sharing some gorgeous photographs that were forwarded to me by neighbour Dordie.)
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These photographs were taken in Alberta, Canada.
Tag: Wild deer
Saturday special!
Enough of the world of spying and whistleblowing and back to stuff that is really important!
Many will recall that on the 10th October, under the heading of Utterly beyond words!, I wrote about a deer befriending us to the point that Jean was able to stroke its neck as it was feeding. The post included this photograph.
Inevitably, being the softies that we are, we have continued to put out feed, in the form of cob or cracked corn, most days.
The word among the local deer population clearly has been passed around!
For here’s a photograph taken automatically on the night of the 19th October.
Then on the 22nd, just three days ago, these photographs were taken shortly after 10am.
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One fear that Jean and I had was that they would become vulnerable to an attack by our dogs. But the deer have quickly wised up to when dogs are being let out of the front or kitchen doors and are off like darts into the forest just a few yards away.
We treasure seeing them each day.
Utterly beyond words!
A connection with a wild animal doesn’t get better than this.
You may wonder, dear reader, how I “square the circle” in terms of a post title, Utterly beyond words, and then reaching out to you with the use of words! My answer to that legitimate question is that if I reflected for the rest of my life, I couldn’t verbalise adequately the feelings (but note p.s. at the end of the post) that went through me, and through Jean, when a mother deer and her young fawn, crossed the boundary between their wild, animal world and our human world.
This is what happened.
Last Sunday afternoon, around 4pm, I was pottering around the area of fruit trees just above our stables. We were fully aware that deer were coming in to our property to eat fallen apples as many times we had caught a glimpse of them through a window.
Anyway, on this particular afternoon outside by the stables, I noticed a deer eating some fallen apples and, somehow, picked up the idea that this gorgeous, wild animal was not stressed-out by me standing there looking at her from some twenty feet away.
After a few minutes of just watching, I quietly went across to the garage where we keep a bag of cob, or cracked corn, that we use to feed the deer during tough winter times. I collected a small amount in a round plastic tray and went back into the orchard area and sat with my back against the trunk of an old oak tree, spread my legs apart and placed the tray with the cob in between my knees.
The mother deer was still hunting around for fallen apples but within a couple of minutes looked across at me, clearly smelling the cob.
Slowly but steadily the beautiful creature came towards me and, miracle of miracles, trusted me sufficiently to eat from the tray. Her head was well within arm’s reach of me!
I was totally mesmerised by this beautiful, fragile, wild animal, head down, eating cob less than three feet from my face! I had the urge to touch her.
Slowly, I reached forward and took a small handful of the cob from the tray and with my other hand pulled the tray to one side. My hand with the cob was fully outstretched; my heart was whispering to the deer that I would never, ever harm her.
Softly, gently the deer reached towards me and nibbled the cob from my left hand.
Later on, when I relayed this incredible event to Jean, I said that if it was at all possible we must try and take a photograph of a wild deer feeding from our hands.
Moving on to Monday afternoon, camera ready if necessary, we kept an eye out for the return of the deer. There was no sign of her. Looked as though it wasn’t going to happen.
Then just before 7pm, I looked up from my desk and there, just outside the window, was the deer. But even better, this time the mother was accompanied by her young fawn.
I grabbed the camera and quickly told Jean to meet me outside with a refill of cob in the same plastic tray. We both sat down on the flat concrete cover of the septic tank; me with the camera, Jean with the tray of cob.
Over to the photographs! The daylight was fading fast and I was hand-holding the camera, thus these are not the sharpest of pictures. But so what!
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When I published my post Space for Nature a little over a week ago, a post that included a photograph of two deer some thirty feet from Jean’s car, never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined what took place last Tuesday afternoon.
Words truly do seem inadequate.
P.S. It is at times like this that we need poetry. So how about it: Sue? Kim? How would you describe in poetry what Jean and I experienced?
Unanticipated consequences!
Who would have believed it!
Way back in July 2012, I posted the following item.
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Dear Readers of Learning from Dogs.
Today, Jeannie and I are off on a trip to Oregon.
We expect to be away for about the next 10 or 11 days.
While there are a number of new posts that will come out during this period, rather than have quiet days with nothing being posted, some days I will be republishing posts from the last three years; hopefully most of them new to your eyes.
Inevitably, responding promptly to comments will be tough.
Which is why I am so grateful to Martin Lack of Lack of Environment who graciously agreed to keep an eye on things while we are away.
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That was twenty-six months ago.
Yesterday morning, Jean and I took Reggie and Chris down to our creek area to feed some wild deer that have been congregating in recent days.
After Jean had sprinkled some cracked corn on the ground, one of the seven deer around us started feeding and when it looked up at me, I took the following picture.
Can’t ever imagine living anywhere else now.
Funny how life runs!
The death of one of our deer.
A very sad start to our Saturday.
Of course, they are not ‘our’ deer, far from it. But over the past months we have come to love the daily, sometime twice-daily, visits of these beautiful creatures to our property.
Early last Saturday morning, as Jean went to feed the chickens and our two miniature horses, just the other side of the grass track she saw a deer lying prone under the trees.
Jean was certain that it was dead and a few minutes later when together we went up to the creature it was obvious that this was the case.
Closer inspection revealed that the deer was one that we had got to know; an elderly lady that had previously lost the sight of her right eye. My guess was that the poor animal had been dead for something under twenty-four hours. There were no obvious signs of an attack by dogs or other creatures. Jean and I hope that she died from old age.
Rather than bury the deer on our property and run the risk of wild carnivores digging it up, we telephoned Wildlife Images, who are close by, because we knew that sometimes dead wild animals make valuable feeding for their precious inhabitants.
However, the fact that we couldn’t guarantee that the dead deer had not been contacted by other wild animals meant that the carcass could not be fed to Wildlife Images’ guests, for fear of disease. (NB: Anyone interested in visiting or helping the centre, please do watch this video.)
So, will close on a happier note by including a photograph taken a couple of weeks ago of Jean hand-feeding one of the deer that is part of the group that included the old lady who so sadly died.
May the old lady have died quickly and without pain.
Learning from Dogs 