In our yard, seen through the bedroom window. It's 1:00 in the afternoon, and the deer brazenly come into the yard, browsing on any green vegetation that's left in the droughty summer.
They are so much smaller and more delicate-looking than you expect.
This one was soon joined by another with bigger antlers. They lept lightly off the retaining wall, then stepped through the garden.
Our yard, and the dry creekbed that runs alongside it, has become the deer-trail up and down the mountain as more and more property owners fence their yards.
One morning last week, as I turned from our street onto the canyon road to the coast, I came upon two stopped cars beside the road, two drivers standing outside. A fender-bender?
As I grew closer, I saw the deer lying on the pavement. Its delicate big-eared head was tilted up like a flower from the gravel shoulder. Its entire back end was laid open from the crash, the blood and meat a deep, dark crimson, like velvet, and I could see the pale rack of bone exposed.
I could not stop. Morning rush hour traffic bore me onward.
Nice pics, Aunt Snow.
ReplyDeleteThey come through the backyard in Berkeley Springs all the time (the backyard is just woods on the side of the mountain).
Some are pretty big!
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Lordy, I'm glad there was no photo of the last deer. :-(
ReplyDeleteLove the photos and the mental image of the tiny deer grazing the greens though.
Irony.
Very pretty pics, Aunt Snow. I had a very close encounter with a young stag just about a year ago.
ReplyDeleteWe have the white-tailed deer, but I believe the Californian deer are mule deer. Both are genus Odocoileus.