Backyard Fawns

We've often spied deer in the garden, but it wasn't until this summer that we saw our first fawn. He was, oddly, alone, and simply wandered out of the back wood to look about and munch on the weeds. At left is a picture of one of the plants he favoured. 

Since then, we've seen this particular fawn a number of times -- and then, at last, with his mum, trying in vain to suckle her. She stepped over him time and again in an effort to wean him -- though on a later day she did let him suckle, and he made loud contented noises. Possibly, as a friend suggested, the mum was absent because the fawn was getting older and more able to fend for himself.

Most recently, we were treated to the sight of two fawns, both younger than the fawn we'd become accustomed to, racing out of the garden after their retreating mother. 

Deer usually have two young, though they can have as few as one and as many as three. They wean their young at around four months of age; gestation period for deer is around six and a half months, and the young may stay with their mum for nearly a year. The mating season occurs from November to February. Females begin breeding at one and a half years of age, though they may breed as early as half a year old. 

Our information comes from Mammals by William H. Burt and Richard P. Grossenheider. Below are pictures we took of the first fawn on the first day we saw him. The other two, we're afraid, were racing by too quickly for us to even grab the camera.