The Fawn

As is our usual custom around our acreage in the spring and late summer, we continue seeking evidence of new arrivals.

Some large and some small, from armadillos, chipmunks, coyotes, racoons, small red foxes, and the occasional bobtail and ringtail cats, (sometimes evidence of mountain lions and the very rare black panther, as well as the skunks, porcupines, possum, and up to and including six female full-time black angus in-residence along with the annual visiting Angus Bull, who we have affectionately named “Mister Bull”.

Each year the girls (as we refer to them) deliver their young, this past year and a first, ending up with one set of twins, this was a delight. Along with this country setting, we have upwards of thirty deer in residence (unfortunately, they show a preference for my wife’s delectable flowers and her fruit trees), of which we delight in seeing the newborns growing up.

On one walk in the spring while viewing the beautiful wildflowers here in the Hill Country of Texas, we stopped dead in our tracks, for there was a sleeping baby fawn not three weeks old, almost hidden in the distant wildflowers, it looked up at us as we approached and then closed her eyes and went back to sleep.

We quickly left the fawn, as without a doubt; the mother deer was not too far away and observed the scene. Her baby did exactly what she is genetically trained to do, that being too lay still. Usually, when we see newborns, they are startled, and quickly run-off, so this was a very rare moment.