White-Tailed Fawns

       In the north woods the does and their fawns can often be seen on the lake shores in the early evenings of midsummer. They wade daintily into the water, picking their way among the pond lilies. Every motion they make is graceful and rhythmical as they choose tender water plants beneath the surface for their evening meal.

a white-tailed fawn

       Although the white-tailed deer is one of our best-known mammals, not much has been written about the fawns. Their story begins in May or June when they were born in a secluded thicket near the lake. They probably weighed four or five pounds at birth. Although they could stand on their slender legs when they were only one day old, they were a bit wabbly and spent much of the first month hiding and resting in the thicket.

       At first the fawns tried out their spindly legs by running and jumping stiff-legged straight up or to the left or right. Later they learned to leap over logs and brush piles and to disappear quickly into the woods when danger seemed near. They learned to swim, too, for deer are very much at home in the water and are strong swimmers.

       During the heat of the day, the deer rested in the cool shade of the trees. Seldom were they seen during the day unless they were disturbed. If they were frightened from their hiding place, they would speedily vanish with long, springy bounds, their tails flung high as a warning to other deer near-by. The name "white-tailed deer" came from this habit of displaying the white under side of the tail.

       By the beginning of July the fawns were sturdy little creatures, and now, in late July, they follow their mother when she steals forth in search of food at dawn or dusk. Up to this time the babies have been raised on their mother's milk, but now they are beginning to eat young buds and juicy water plants.

       By the end of September the fawns will be much less dependent upon the doe and will be living entirely upon buds, leaves, and bark. At this time, too, they will shed their dappled baby coats and acquire heavier, gray-tan winter coats. The spots that marked their youth will be almost unnoticeable. The hairs of the winter coat will be coarser and will stand out, giving the fur a rough appearance and forming air spaces that make the coat warmer.

       From spring until late fall the bucks ignore their families. During that time their antlers develop. Then, as winter approaches, the bucks rejoin the does and young, and the deer tend to gather in small bands.

       The white-tailed deer thrives in our north woods where forests have been cut or burned over, and there are small lakes, swamps, and bogs. Here, too, is man‚ "the lumberjack, the camp caretaker, and the forester‚" and where there is man there is protection from animal enemies. Where there is man there are often gardens, too, and the deer frequently raid them on moonlit nights. Even the fawns are taught to clear the garden fences, though they are sometimes made exceptionally high to keep the marauders out.

       For all their youthful ungainliness baby deer have an unexplainable grace. They are affectionate, gentle, and appealingly helpless. That is why so many toy deer are sold each year, and why books and motion pictures about fawns are so popular with young and old. Whipple

• Little white-tailed fawn with it's mother + one chip monk.

Review vocabulary from freedictionary.com:

• antler(s) - One of a pair of hornlike, bony, deciduous growths, often elongated and branched, on the head of an adult member of the deer family, usually found only on males.
• marauders - Those who rove and raid in search of plunder.
• secluded - Removed or remote from others; solitary.
• thicket - A dense growth of shrubs or underbrush.