Saturday, February 7, 2015

Boy Deer in the Snow

We got a whole bunch of snow over the past week, something like a foot spread across a couple of big storms, which is the most snow we've had here in northeastern Ohio so far this winter. With the help of my snowshoes, I tromped out to the woods at the edge of our yard today to see what creatures the trail camera had picked up since the snow started last Sunday. I've had the camera on video mode recently, which is super exciting. As it turns out, we had a bunch of deer visitors in the snow, including the first adult male deer I've seen in our yard.

This hefty fellow with lovely antlers came by around 2:00 AM on Monday, in the middle of the first storm:


A few minutes later, another deer passed by the camera. Could this be a male who just recently shed his antlers? Those circular patches on his forehead are suspicious, and the dark shiny stuff nearby looks like it could be blood:

 

Yet another male deer came by early in the morning on Thursday to root through the snow. So many of these deer have found this spot on the ground interesting (although there are other parts of the yard that are much more dug up), and I wonder what they're finding under there. This guy's antlers are more on the scraggly side, but that just makes him distinctive (for now anyway):

 

I'm sure we have a fairly large deer population out there, and it's interesting to see how many different individuals wander by (usually under the cover of darkness). Here's my favorite deer video so far, from yesterday around 1:00 AM; if only the camera recorded sound, too! :D

2 comments:

  1. Very cool! Did they nibble on the bushes?

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    1. I've seen some suspicious-looking nibbles out there, but I think they're mostly finding food on the ground under the snow. There are some parts of the yard where the snow has been totally dug up by foraging deer!

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