Saturday afternoon, June 11, 2010. I was driving slowly around my local area to see what I could see. I was in my farmer neighbor’s corn stubble field untouched since last fall. As I approached my own land, which is the woods part, suddenly a deer stood up from her bed. Noticing how suddenly gaunt she was as compared to a pregnant belly a couple of days earlier, I knew she had recently given birth. She certainly was not in any distress by my presence as can be noted by her merely standing still with tail dropped.
In the second photo you can tell she has walked a few steps, but still not showing any alarm, just walking away slowly.
In the third photo a small udder can be detected by careful examination proving the recent birth of a fawn or fawns.
In the fourth photo she has raised her tail, but not in the classic flag alarm manner. It seems more of a half mast effort. Also if alarmed her head would be held high as she searched for danger.
In the fifth photo she had done something I have never seen before.
She squatted down on her haunches.
I thought she looked like a kangaroo in that position, although I’ve never actually saw one of those either.
She remained like that for at least a full minute while I snapped several photos.
She is looking into the trees on my land, but there is precious little there to hold her interest.
After a minute or so she once more stood up with her tail straight out behind her. All of this time I had no idea what was going on.
Then raising her tail a bit higher she trotted off to explore some other area while I moseyed on up to where she had committed this strange act. I found a rather large wet area where she had obviously urinated. Having watched deer all of my adult life I had never witnessed this on any prior occasion. I would have never guessed a deer would squat to pee if I had not witnessed and photographed her in the act.
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