Deer

Freda and I were out, and when we were driving we spotted this dear. So I grabbed the old camera I happened to have in the car to snap off a few photos.

Deer are a beautiful shade of reddish brown at this time of the year. They turn more greyish in the winter.

We watched the deer for a few minutes, until she took off.

We also drove by cornfields that were as high as an elephant's eye.

Deer, Blue Jays, baby Robins, and more!!

We saw a deer on the other side of the lake when we were walking the dogs this morning. This photo turned out surprisingly well.

The Blue Jays like sunflower seeds, so they frequent the area around the feeder that I stock with sunflower seeds. Here the Blue Jays are happily sharing the sunflower seed bounty with starlings and red winged blackbirds. I've been trying to get a photo of the red wing blackbirds in flight, as the brilliant red flashes on their wings are so pretty, but haven't been successful as yet...

This Downy Woodpecker seems to think the markings on this 4x4 post are from insect holes. It discovered that there are no insects in this post. I think it thinks that things that look like holes are suitable for finding insects because it then went over to the goldfinch feeder...

Here's the robin on the nest - this photo was taken about 12:30pm today (June 29th). You can see the beaks of the babies just below the red feathers of the adult robin.

A hungry baby robin, bravely sticking its beak up - hoping for food.

No wait -- there are at least two baby robins in the nest!

FEED ME!!!!!

The mama and papa robins are busy hopping all over the lawn, hunting for bugs to feed their hungry family.

The view from the bedroom window. Very pretty!! And quite close to the bird feeds too, so I can get some good photos.

This is definitely a male American Goldfinch, but I think this one is a juvenile as it is quite small and the yellow feathers are not yet gloriously intense yellow.

As I was snapping photos of the birds, I saw this little fellow pop his head up from the rocks. Taz likes trying to catch this chipmunk. Although he managed to catch one last year, even his speed is woefully inadequate to be regularly successful at it. But at least he likes the thrill of the chase. :)

Ah, finally, a really cute photo! Doesn't this remind you of a Beatrix Potter painting?

Deer in the back yard

It is supposed to get to 16C today! That will put an end to almost all of the snow, I think...

March 12, 2010
A nice photo of some deer in the neighbour's back yard. Freda took this photo from the car - it really turned out nicely. Maybe I'll post this one on the weather channel web site again.

I was in the back yard with the dogs, having lunch. And suddenly they went crazy - exploding towards the fence in a furious frenzy of barking and flying legs! Ah, of course - it's a deer! Fortunately I had the camera with me, and I even had it turned on also. Can you see the deer?

From where Tawny is, look left along the ground by the fence and you can see the deer. It is on our back property but is not in the fenced part. Taz is in mid stride, taking a sharp left turn as he reaches the fence!!

A follow-up photo of Taz and Tawny barking at the deer (marked). Their barking spooked it and it turned around and returned in the direction that it had come from.

I did a panorama photo of the back yard so you can see how much snow has melted. It's a nice clear day so you can see the Gatineau Hills in the distance.

Labour Day = Deer Day = Dog Day

This morning, when Tawny woke Freda up to get her breakfast (yes, Tawny is our alarm dog on non-work days) Freda looked out the window and saw a number of deer just outside the fenced area of our back yard. Freda was able to take a couple of good photos of the deer before they scampered away.


You can see how close they were to our fence, it's at the bottom right corner of this photo.

We spent a good part of today cleaning out our garage, as Mark's sisters are coming this weekend to help paint it! :) It was a dog's life as they worked hard too, mostly looking precious!

Tawny wanted to make sure she was in the shade, so she laid in the shade of the garden trailer which was in the shade of a tree. Very cute!

Meanwhile, Taz was enjoying himself chewing on a rawhide bone.

Saturday is deer day!

When Freda got up to let the dogs out and feed them, she realized there were quite a number of deer all around the house, grazing on the new grass, or whatever they like eating. This is a collage from deer in various places around the house.

This is a pano taken from the front. There is a deer on the far left and one on the far right.

Anyone want deer for dinner?

Dec 5, 2008 - by D.J.W.

This photo was taken by our neighbour. He watch three coyotes brush wolves chase a deer onto the lake, where it broke through the ice and was trapped, and then they killed it. The carcass of the deer has not yet been finished off, and the crows etc have also been enjoying the fruits of the coyotes brush wolves' labour.

Mother Nature at work...

Update Jan 1/09: these were not coyotes but are what are locally known as brush wolves - they are larger than coyotes and smaller than the classic wolf.

Mother Nature can be cruel (follow-up to deer)

Deer story - the preamble...

I was reviewing some other photos that I took of the deer on Sunday morning. I think this photo tells the tale quite well and explains how the deer broke his right front leg and ended up where he did - I have written my speculation onto the photo. The ice on the east side of the lake (bottom of photo) had been forming for several days, and is relatively thick. However, the rest of the lake was open, perhaps due to the constant wind we had been experiencing, until Sunday. The wind died down overnight on Saturday and there was a film of ice on the lake. At the bottom right of this photo, you can see a relatively large area where the thin ice had been disturbed. From that place, you can see a clearly visible trail across to where the deer is laying down, where the ice has been broken and has refrozen.

My guess is that the deer was crossing the lake, fell through the ice and broke his leg at that time, thrashed around in the water for a while trying to get out. Since the deer had only one good front leg (conjecture) it was unable to get out of the water so decided to swim across the lake. When it got across the lake, it was confronted by the coyote brush wolf and was trapped. You already know the rest of the story.



I saw this part of a wing this morning when I was taking the dogs for a walk. Obviously some predator had enjoyed lunch, no doubt to this bird's great dismay.

But that's Mother Nature - some animals are food for others.

Update (Jan 1/09): The animal was a brush wolf, not a coyote. At least, that is what it is known as locally.

The saga of the young deer

8:43am

Freda woke me up to "come and see the two wolves". Looking through the binoculars I could only see one on the opposite side of the lake. I said where is the other one and Freda said it is swimming toward the shore. As we watched, it got to the shore and stood up - then we realized that it was a deer. The deer saw the predator at the same time and froze there. As we looked at the situation through the binoculars, we realized that the wolf was not a full-size wolf after all, but was a coyote brush wolf. A coyote brush wolf is unlikely to be able to deliver a killing blow by itself, and a healthy deer could likely get away from a single coyote brush wolf but not if it is cornered against a partially frozen lake.


9:45am

We watched the coyote brush wolf coming and going, trotting off into the woods for a few minutes and then reappearing, but never really getting closer than 10 or 15 feet to the deer. We didn't know why the deer didn't get up and run when the coyote brush wolf went away. You can see that the deer had to break the layer of ice on the lake as it swam (see swath of broken ice running horizontally across the bottom of the photo), so we thought that perhaps the deer was exhausted and perhaps even frozen to the ice. Although deer are food for predators like coyotes and wolves, Freda and I thought it needed to have a sporting chance to be able to get away from the coyote brush wolf, so we decided to walk around the lake with the dogs (on leash, of course, when we got to the lake because we didn't want them to go through the ice!). We figured that our presence, along with the dogs, would scare the coyote brush wolf away to let the deer have a chance to live another day.


About 10:30am
As we got near the deer, on the other side of the lake, we could see that it wasn't moving. We couldn't figure out why it didn't run, unless it was frozen to the ice (which does happen).


Strangely, we were able to get quite close to the deer. I showed this photo to a few people who hunt deer and the consensus seemed to be that this was a young male deer, about a year old. You can see that it is growing some horns, but they are just spikes, so it definitely is a young deer.


Freda went off with Tawny and Taz so the two dogs wouldn't frighten the deer too much. As I got even closer to the deer, it got up very clumsily and lurched off trailing drops of blood, with its right front leg just kind of dangling. The leg was very clearly broken and completely. I wasn't ready with the camera so wasn't able to get a photo of the deer. The above photo is of the spot where the deer was laying in the water. You can see the blood had been pooling in the water. I think it is quite unlikely that the deer was able to swim across the lake with a broken leg, given the thickness of the ice on the lake (1-2 inches thick in most places). We think that perhaps the coyote brush wolf was able to somehow attack the deer when we were not watching it or else perhaps the deer slipped on the ice and somehow fell and broke its leg that way.

In any case, it is now more than 12 hours since we last saw the terrified deer clumsily crashing its way through the thick underbrush, and it is more likely than not that the deer is now in deer heaven. We hope that whatever predator did catch it in the end (because it would have been an easy catch) was able to put it out of its misery quickly.

Update Jan 1/09: these were not coyotes but are what are locally known as brush wolves - they are larger than coyotes and smaller than the classic wolf.