Interesting Wildlife Observation

woodsrunner

Couple of days ago I noticed, mixed in with the deer tracks around my yard, the tracks of a very young fawn. No question about it---a fawn. It's about 2+ months before does start dropping this years' crop of fawns, so the doe that gave birth to this fawn had to have been bred about 3 months before the normal rut season starts here where I am.

While this is very unusual, it does happen, and if you've spent a career working in the woods of north Florida as I have you will have seen spotted fawns every month of the year. It does catch your attention, however!

early

Some refuse to conform.
There's people like that too.

Danoobie

A neighbor of mine noticed a fawn, too.
Hey, it happens.

bisley

Opening day for whitetails in my area (Piney Woods) is keyed to the peak of the 'first' rut. But the rut actually starts to increase in September, before reaching a peak in early November. Does are on a 28 day cycle, so if there are frisky bucks around, they could breed during any month. The fact that the overwhelming majority of does are bred from September to January is said to be because bucks move around more in cooler weather, and have hardened antlers in the fall that they don't shed till late winter or early spring. Of course, all of the above is based on Texas Parks and Wildlife research, and they make a big deal out of making predictions based on small samplings, kind of like political experts. They generally get the trends right, but their margin of error is probably a good deal higher than they want to admit.

Our weather patterns have been so random for the last few years that it isn't that unusual to see rutting bucks between the generally accepted 'peak' times.

snake284

early wrote: »

Some refuse to conform.
There's people like that too.

I'm a terrible conformist. I hear OTHER drums in my head to march to their beat. Even tough they usually lead me astray I can't resist!

:rotflmao::rotflmao::rotflmao: