06/24/05

Observing the Newborns

My first recollection about the fawns of Rockrimmon is from about ten years ago. When I reached the street at the end of my driveway, I saw this nervous-looking doe standing by my mailbox.  I wondered why she seemed upset and wasn’t moving away.  She turned her head toward the street, and then I knew.  This tiny fawn stood in the middle of the street, about 20 feet ahead on my car’s path. The little fellow seemed totally baffled by what this pavement stuff was and seemed to measure each tiny step forward.  As I waited for the fawn to catch up with its mother, I surmised that the doe likely had birthed the fawn among the houses on the other side. This probably moving the fawn across the road for the first time.  I was left wishing I’d had a camera.

Over the years I have had a camera and taken many pictures of the deer of Rockrimmon.  This year from mid-May on, I have been eagerly awaiting the opportunity to photograph 2005’s new fawns.  Until Tuesday, 14 May, I had no inkling I’d get the unique opportunity to photograph such new fawns.

Arriving home from the gym about 7:10 a.m., I noticed a doe standing in an abandoned sandbox at the bottom of my yard.  Although a large yucca and a huge tuft of grass blocked part of my view, she appeared to have something in the sand beneath her. Getting a better look, I was sure she was nuzzling a fawn.  I recalled seeing her lounging in that area two of the last three evenings.

I grabbed my cameras and started down across the yard.  I could definitely see one fawn—one dark, wet, glistening fawn—and the dark lump in the sand behind the yucca seemed to be a second baby.  Twin fawns are common here in the foothills each spring, so I wasn’t surprised. 

At first I was stymied about where I could settle to have a reasonable view.  The best spot seemed to be right where a game trail actually enters the yard from a small stand of scrub oaks, with some open native grass, yuccas, a cactus here and there and a few pines and shrubs.  The main problem was getting to that position. I’d have to walk around a low branch of a scrub oak and put me closer to the sandbox than Mama Deer was comfortable with.

As I edged around the branch, she squared off toward me and gave me the evil eye.  The deer here are pretty tame, and I certainly didn’t want to add to her current challenges.  Once around the branch, I could back up a couple of steps to sit down.  That seemed to satisfy her, so she returned to the business at hand—taking care of her newborn twins.  However, whenever I made a noise or needed to go around the branch again to go inside to download pictures, she kept an eye on me.

At this point, each fawn was a mahogany lump with legs, ears, and a head sticking out at odd angles.  Sopping wet, both glistened in the low morning sun.  I feared that shooting toward the light would blight the pictures with too much glare, but most photos came out fine.  The lighting improved over the next hour and a half as the sun rose.

Mama deer was working to get one fawn on its feet.  She put her nose down on it and somehow was communicating.  I never heard any sounds out of the three, so I’m not sure how this all worked—but it worked.  Generally the fawns seemed to get their back legs up with hooves wide spread and kind of balance on their elbows.  Through continued coaxing and nuzzling, Mama Deer got that one up.  In spite of the grass and yucca, I could observe and photograph much of what happened.

Once the first fawn was up, Mama Deer coaxed the second one to its feet.  At about 7 16, she had them both standing.  From my first looks at the fawns about 7:10, I’m guessing they were born about 7 a.m., or perhaps a minute or two afterward.  So both were standing at around the 15-minute point in their lives.

That lasted probably less than a minute.  One decided it’s ears were much too wet, shook it’s head and ears, and was back in the sand with a plop.

Over the first hour, each managed inglorious tumbles probably at least 15 times.  Part of the time, I ran one camera in the movie mode and got maybe 15 minutes or so of somewhat jerky video.  Some of the falls documented show it didn’t take much to suddenly go from up to down.  In much of the first hour and a half, the general standing posture was to keep the legs widespread, sometime almost painfully so.

During all this, Mama Deer’s tongue was in almost constant action.  Whichever fawn was in range got a steady licking from mother.  In retrospect, it’s interesting that the little ones stood very obediently and took it.

Over the morning, I thought many, many times about what a terrible place a sandbox was to deliver fawns.  She must have licked up a great deal of sand, because the fawns were wet for more than an hour, and every time one went down, it likely ended up coated in a new layer of sand.  Friends suggested Mama Deer might have picked the sand because it was warm in the early morning sun.  Even though the grass had been watered a couple of hours earlier, I still would have voted for having the fawns about 10 feet away in a fairly level part of the yard.

As I watched and snapped pictures, I kept thinking about how great it would be if every mother could be sitting alongside and watching this mother.  Of course, Mama Deer wouldn’t have been happy with having anyone else around, but I witnessed a superb example of a mother’s love and devotion to her children. Words that came to mind were her love, her serenity and her seemingly infinite patience—except with me.

The last few hours likely had not been comfortable ones for you, and like any new mother, she could have used some rest. But there she was, carrying on as nature demanded, and she didn’t show any sign of weariness except for a yawn or two, a couple of which I captured in cute pictures.  She didn’t have nurses to clean up the babies and wrap them in warm blankets.  No one spooned ice chips into her mouth or held a cool, damp cloth to her brow.  No doting grandmothers or new aunts were there to coo over the newborns and take them for a while to give Mama Deer a break.

She just continued, tending and licking and encouraging and loving her new babies.  I sensed a Madonna-like quality (I’m not talking about the Madonna who lives in England) in her actions.  She’s larger than most does in the area, and her comportment seem quite proper, almost regal, as she brought her fawns forward through their introduction into this new world for them.

Thinking of the fawns, the word that came to mind most often was bewildered.  Initially the eyes seemed a bit glazed over, so I couldn’t be sure how well they were seeing. From some pictures, pathetic is a word that comes to mind. That’s part of why I put the newborn update on the website, as their demeanor and physical abilities had changed markedly by the time I saw them with Mama Deer four days later.

In about 20 minutes or so, I’d filled up a 1 gigabyte card in my Nikon D-70, so I needed to go in and download.  She stopped her licking momentarily and kept an eye on me as I departed.

Once inside, I downloaded the images and movies and took a quick look at a few to make sure the whole effort wasn’t a failure.  It wasn’t.  I went back out as soon as the empty cards were reloaded.

Now Mama Deer was resting in the sand with the two little ones around her. Certainly she deserved a rest, but I recognized also that this was a time to deliver the afterbirth. 

Some pictures taken over the next 30-40 minutes are superb.  Now mother is close enough for the fawns to cuddle up to more directly.  One lay alongside, which was much easier than getting up and falling down so often.  At some point, the other decided it couldn’t get close enough to Mama Deer, so it ended up climbing atop the fawn that had claimed the prime spot.  Some of those pictures are, dare I say, precious.  In some cases, the fawn beneath gets scrunched.  In one favorite shot, the positioning looks as if Mama Deer is holding the top fawn over her shoulder to burp the little fellow.

In about 30 to 40 minutes after birth, they showed signs of being ready to nurse, so I guess they were hungry already.

Even at that point in life, the two little ones seemed to be developing distinct personalities.  In another favorite photo, I see a little girl (I have no idea for sure what their genders are) kissing her mother on the neck.  The mother is licking the backside of the little boy, whose expression suggests he doesn’t have a clue yet about what is going on.

When I returned the second time from downloading the images, Mama Deer was back on her feet.  At just a little over an hour of life, the fawns definitely were interested in nursing. This was a challenge since Mama Deer is tall and the little ones had to stretch—on legs that still were somewhat shaky.

The fawns kept close to Mama Deer but began exploring the edges of the sand box.  After initial nursing, she led them out into the native grasses beyond.  One quickly found the grass to its liking and settled down.  From my location, all I could see was a dark head with very wide ears poking out above the grass.  Guess he wasn’t on level ground as from another angle, his back side looked strangely lumpy.

After an hour and a half of photography, with the deer now beyond the sand box, I went in to work on the photos.  An hour later she had moved them another 20-30 feet along a gully and at the edge of the scrub oaks. At nearly 3 hours of age, the fawns were more sure-footed and dry, with their white spots showing brightly in the sun. They now showed to be pretty skinny and their coats seemed a size or two too big. They were exploring the uneven terrain but still staying close to mother.  Now they could keep at least a pair of feet close together.

In a few minutes, Mama Deer moved them into the scrub oaks, and I wouldn’t see the fawns again until Saturday. I went back inside to process pictures. 

I kept feeling blessed to have had the opportunity for a close-up view of an event happening, unwitnessed, thousands of times throughout the foothills of the Front Range and over much of Colorado.

Since the 14^th, I’ve had numerous sightings of Mama Deer and a few of her new babies.  I have documented some of those in Newborns Update.

© 2005 Jimmie H Butler