The last few days have been beautiful. The streets were dry and the sky was blue so Maggie and I took to them for a much needed fresh air boost. As I reached the bottom of the hill and the entrance to our neighborhood, I finally found what I had been looking for. Deer Tracks. They were far apart indicating the deer had to run or leap to get through the deep snow. I also noticed their trail was a narrow one, indicating only 1 or 2 deer were roaming. Normally after a snowfall, a walk or even a casual glance around the neighborhood reveal many traffic patterns of our local herd of deer.
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The deer are plentiful around here and they are not shy. If you take a close look at this picture you will see, beyond the birdfeeder, the outline of a deer in the ravine. This was taken from our family room window with a moderately priced camera that has a nice zoom lens. On a few occasions my husband and I have spotted them lying on the ground in the ravine. There were tracks through the earlier snowfalls that let me know they were eating our holly bush, right through the Christmas light netting. (They are much more careful than the squirrels in Florida that routinely ate right through the wiring.) No, the deer around here are not shy, but I haven't seen any tracks in 2 weeks, and I wonder where they go and how do they manage when the snow is deep and the food is buried? I know the basic answer. They hole up under a pine, eat bark and whatever they can find. The children's book "My Side of the Mountain", by Jean Craighead George was a favorite book of mine because it does help me see how things work in the woods. But what about MY deer? Where do they go?
This thought always takes me to another one that recently really puzzles me. Maybe someone out there will have an educated answer. Why do the birds so diligently build nests in the spring, and then never use them when the weather is bad? I can understand that the robin that built the nest under the deck has gone south for the winter. Smart robin! But the bluebirds that inhabited their very own bluebird house last spring left as soon as the fledgling left and never used it again. What do they do in torrential rains, or high winds, or bitter cold and snow? Where do they go when the snow lays 4 inches thick on the tree limbs? Why, oh why, did they let the house sparrow move in this winter?
Perhaps I should have been a biologist because the habits and behavior of animals puzzle me and, in the case of the deer eating my holly, frustrate me. Deer don't like holly according to the label. That brings another thought. If I was a biologist, maybe I could learn how to teach deer to read.
I have wondered these same questions. How do animals get food when there is constant snow on the ground?" I remember on Long Island how the geese seemed a bit frantic when it came to getting food when we had an extended time of snow on the ground.
ReplyDeleteWhere do they live at night - that is - if they don't use their nests. I find that absurd that they don't use nests, as they would be logical and protected -- particularly bluebird (type) boxes. Especially if there is no foliage on the trees, why not nests - or bluebird box type enclosures? But -- our box remains empty, and hopefully at nesting time we'll see one. There must be a reason for this, but I surely don't know.... I know that my birds that feed on our feeders hang out in our Camellia bush - and may be there at night - though I suspect not. However, that bush has leaves all winter.
I remember my Live Journal Friend from Alaska, Susan talking about this as it concerned the incredibly fat chickadee birds that literally did nothing but eat at her feeders all day - - and she gave us this fascinating link, which you might enjoy reading, too:
http://www.gi.alaska.edu/ScienceForum/ASF16/1641.html
I have no answers -- and have had these same questions, too. I even googled this and still didn't get too many answers.
I love that link. Great article. It answers some of my questions, but I'll never know why. Perhaps they feel a nest is too open and easily identifiable. It is used because they have eggs to protect but once they can fly they may be safer on their own. Even so, it still seem counter-productive, or counter-intuitive to me!
ReplyDeleteThat's one of the things I thought of -- that nests are too "visible". I wonder if birds are really compromising themselves when they are in nests, because they can be found more easily than if they are buried in tiny holes in trees, or hiding in shrubs. But -- even then, that doesn't make sense, because why would babies be raised (the future of the species) where it's less safe? You have a point that nests may be the safest place for EGGS, where in other spots, they would be too vulnerable to be eaten by some other animal, who would not be a danger to the adult bird. I'm now rationalizing and guessing, and don't really know. You're right -- the "why" has not been answered.
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