Rex Trulove
This is not the same yearling as in the previous picture, though the location is almost the same; across the street from our house. This deer just crossed the street from the west side of our house. She is very unconcerned with me and isn’t even looking at me when I took the picture. This picture was taken about a month after the previous one.
Incidentally, despite the caption in the picture, this is a mule deer, not a white tail.
Beautiful deer, we have some in our New Zealand forests and they have caused quite a lot of damage to our forrests, they were imports.
Yep, they will sometimes kill trees by eating the bark, especially if they are hungry. If they have no predators, the problem becomes much worse, too. Deer can overpopulate very quickly.
Amazing to see them in neighborhoods.
When there is no snow, they take advantage of the growing grass in yards to munch on. In the winter, we sometimes have two or three that bed down next to the house. The area is protected and there is grass under the snow that they can get to. They also know that I occasionally toss apples out there.
That is so cool Rex. Sort of like a refuge for them.
They certainly think so. As long as they stay out of my garden when it is actively growing, we’re all cool. They are stubborn, though. A number of times when I’ve had to chase them away from the garden, I’ve come within arm’s length of one deer or another. In fact, that is why I feed them the apples where I do. It is away from the garden. lol
We used to feed them corn as well. And put up scarecrows around our garden.
They are so used to people that a scarecrow wouldn’t phase them. strips of neon colored tape work fairly well, though, and they don’t like the smell of the fermented fish that I use on the garden. Still, when they are determined, there isn’t much that can be done. The mule deer can jump an eight-foot fence flat-footed and without effort.
At the moment with our humidity we could do with some of your deer, the lawnmowers haven’t turned up and it’s fast becoming long.
There’s little doubt that the deer would eat the grass, but deer eat while they are on the move, usually to and from water. By doing it that way, by the time they get to their bedding grounds, they have plenty of food in their bellies and can lay and chew the cud at leisure. Thus, if left to the deer, you’d have meandering paths with shorter grass and the rest would still be long. LOL
I do not distinguish them by species.
Many people don’t, but there can be some major differences between different species. That isn’t just in appearance but also their habits.