I experienced a unique doe/fawn encounter just before nightfall last night. With a thunderstorm approaching, I decided to make a final check of the bark moats around my newly planted trees and shrubs in my backyard. As I neared my fallow field, I jumped an adult doe. She was bedded in the middle of the field, and she took just a few bounds, stopped and started circling me. She snorted as she was circling, almost as if to taunt me to follow her. I could see the grass matted down where she had been bedded, so I stepped forward to investigate and immediately found a newborn fawn. It was not very old, because the afterbirth was still intact on the ground next to the fawn.

The fawn was curled up like a cotton-tailed rabbit. I backed away from the birth site and watched the doe for a few more minutes. Her behavior reminded me of a killdeer plover...trying to distract my attention from her offspring to lure me away. I returned to the site at first light this morning in hopes of getting some photos, but, alas, the doe must have moved the fawn back to a neighboring woodlot overnight. What amazed me the most was last night's storm was pretty severe. We received nearly 2 inches of rain and high winds. The fact that the doe had to nurse the fawn (to provide initial colostrum) and clean up all the afterbirth, etc., before moving her newborn to safety is especially intriguing, because she obviously performed all of those duties in the midst of a downpour.

--Dan Schmidt, D&DH Editor