Lonesome Fawn

Lonesome Fawn

August 16, 2020

“Lonesome” was born about May 31 this year near our fenced-in orchard.  It’s fenced to keep critters like Lonesome from eating the peaches, pears, apples and persimmons that grow there.  

I first glimpsed Lonesome when it was hiding among the Brown-eyed Susans outside the orchard — as newborn fawns hide instinctively.  It remained in this position until I got too close for its comfort and it took off like a shot.  

Usually, deer moving through our neighborhood maintain some kind of home range that extends over the properties of our neighbors.  Thus, we often see the same deer as they make their rounds through the neighborhood.  But, this fawn and its mother stayed mostly in our back yard where there is food, water and shade.  

We quickly noticed that the mother limped when walking.  Closer examination revealed that she had a serious wound on her right, front leg close to the knee. (See photo).  My first thought was that maybe she had accidentally run into some barbed wire, but who knows what caused the injury.

Over several weeks, we watched this mother and her fawn grazing in our back yard.  The fawn would run and play, but the mother would not join in — likely because her leg was too painful.  She could run on 3 legs, but could only hobble when walking.

I found it of interest that they did not leave, but stayed nearby so that we saw them almost every day.  After maybe a month, we still saw the fawn, but the doe was nowhere in sight.  She had disappeared.  For a doe to abandon a fawn would be very, very unusual, so we assumed that she likely had died — maybe from her infected knee or some predator got her.  It was obvious that Lonesome was now an orphan — a poor little lonesome orphan.  Anyway, Lonesome appeared to have lost it's interest in play.

The fawn — that we later named Lonesome — still remained in our yard or surrounding woods — and we watched it almost every day.  Pat would get excited when I told her that the fawn was back out in the open.  She would come watch in a hurry.

When it was younger, it was very wild.  If I happened to walk up on it hiding in the grass, it would jump up and run for its life until it was out of sight.  But, as it grew older, it would not always run away, but might watch us from a distance without running away.  Gradually, that distance became less and less so that it would continue grazing even if we were only maybe 30 yards away.  We had no intention of trying to tame the little animal.  Wild animals should remain wild — we opined.

Sometimes it would lie down and rest where we could see it.  Herds of other deer would pass through the yard and Lonesome never joined them.  Maybe because the does in the herd would chase Lonesome away.  

After its mother disappeared, we wondered if Lonesome was old enough to survive without its mother’s milk.  It is possible that this fawn might be a little stunted from the lack of this rich source of protein, but it seems to be healthy enough on forage alone.

We assumed that Lonesome was a young buck until we watched it squat to pee.  I'm not certain that this method is dependable for assessing gender, but it's our best guess for now.  Anyway "she" will soon lose her spots and likely leave for more interesting places, but that’s OK.  However, she has provided a fascinating distraction during this time of Covid-19 disruption to our normal, summer travel plans.  

It is doubtful that it will ever become emotionally attached to either Pat or me, even though we both try to stimulate conversations with it.  Pat talks to it in her “baby” voice, calling it “sweet thing” or whatever.  I have also been known to sing a few notes to it from some song that is running through my head at the time.  Lonesome shows no sign of liking our voices, but neither does she run away from our chatter.

Maybe the best that I can say is that this little critter provides us with some degree of solace and entertainment in these trying,  Covid-lockdown, times.  So, thank you Lonesome and we will miss you when you are gone.

 

But in April, 2021, we think we spotted her again.  She was now a nearly-grown doe, alone and laid down is two places she had favored as a fawn.  Thinking she might remember me, I went outside where she could see me and gently talked to her.  She watched from about 50 yards away, but suddenly bolted and was gone again.  Oh well! 

Table of Contents: https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/6813612681836200616/3382423676443906063?hl=en