Precious
She was a little out of breath and there was a note of excitement in her voice. “Come quickly,” Pat said. “There are two little fawns....” Lacing up my boots, I wondered if they would still be there when I arrived. We had been wondering what happened to the deer (Jane and Doe) that we had been seeing periodically. We think they were a pregnant doe and maybe her yearling daughter (Jane). We had not seen them in over a week. But, while walking through the woods, Pat saw the doe first, just across the barb wire fence. Startled, the doe trotted off, leaving two fawns behind. Pat came quickly to the motorhome to lure me away from the computer.
When we arrived, sure enough, there were two, spotted, and slightly wet-behind-the-ears fawns. Their fur was almost completely dry and they were - to use a mother’s word - precious. They were both standing, but upon seeing us, one got a little excited and fell from its wobbly legs to the ground. They appeared to be only hours old and Doe had not yet taught them to be cautious around strangers. Now we were faced with a dilemma - how close can we get to these fawns without compromising their wildlife integrity. Would the mother still accept them if they were somehow contaminated with the dreadful human scent? With camera in hand I decided that as long as we stayed a few feet away and did not touch them, we might get some interesting photos with minimal risk of stinking the up with human BO. Those unbelievably large, round, dark, eyes were focused on us and they showed no signs of fear. Here they stood, in front of their worst enemies in the world (Homo sapiens) and were in the process of imprinting our image on their little brains, as if we were their mama. They slowly began to drift toward us. Quickly, I took a couple of photos, and we vacated the premises so that mama could reclaim her offspring.
After maybe 30 minutes, we could stand it no longer and returned within view of the fawns - maybe 50 yards away - to see if Doe had returned. The fawns had crossed the fence to where Pat and I had been standing and were trying to nurse each other - mama was nowhere in sight and the fawns were obviously hungry. Then we heard a snort in the woods - it was apparently Doe who was being very cautious not to return to the fawns until it was perfectly safe. Again, we reluctantly left to let nature take its course. This time we forced ourselves to stay away for over an hour. By then, to our relief, the fawns were gone and we assume the happy little family was reunited.
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