This whitetail doe mom is in a cranky mood by the time she gets to the feeders. It doesn’t take much to set her off the rest of the way.
I caught this action on a trail camera. All the deer cooperated and stayed in front of the camera. They were nice and close giving us a good look at what’s happening.
Last year’s spring fawn is tagging along. Does will let them hang around until the new fawn is close to being born. This fawn still gets the doe’s full attention.
Another whitetail doe is back in the bushes behind the feeders. Her winter coat blends in really well with the gray branches but you can make her out as she forages some of the smaller branches. When she spots these two she looks like she’s really happy to see someone else. She bounds forward into the yard. What she doesn’t know is that she scared the fawn when she jumped.
Mom doe clearly thinks the area with the deer feeders is her territory, although I don’t think that’s what caused the problems. Her fawn is startled by the other doe and it seems to me this is more of a ‘don’t mess with my kid’ situation, than anything else as the other doe clearly isn’t any kind of a threat.
Mom isn’t going to let that pass regardless. When the other doe doesn’t run, and actually looks like she’s ready to make friends, Mom slams her face into the snow. I slowed down the smack down on the second play, just so you can get a better look at what happened. The expression on the doe’s face says it all. She doesn’t seem to be hurt, though she doesn’t waste any time getting out of the doe’s way.
We don’t get large herds of whitetail deer into the yard, the largest we’ve gotten so far is six does at one time. The other visitors mostly come in twos or singles.
They do have scuffles from time to time but it never seems to be anything too serious and is usually over very quickly. By the next day this whole whitetail smack down might all be forgotten and everyone will get along just fine again.