Sun in the treetops. A doe emerges from the woods to browse the road bank, followed by her two grown fawns already in their unspotted, gray-brown winter coats. Head up, her ears swivel toward a distant crow.
deer
An hour past sunrise, one last, brief shower before it clears—or so I hope. A deer walks out of the woods and up the driveway, followed by a fawn whose spots are just beginning to fade.
An hour after sunrise the sky darkens again. At the first close rumble of thunder, a fawn leaps up out of the meadow and dashes into the woods.
Overcast and cool. Here and there, black walnut leaves are beginning to yellow. A deer foraging at the woods’ edge breaks into a trot to try to escape her flies.
Humid, cool and overcast at sunrise — an orange glow. Two thin deer wander through the meadow at the edge of the woods, lowering their heads for a mouthful of bracken, some grass, a goldenrod tip …
A yellow-throated vireo sings, right below the sun flooding through the canopy to half blind me. I hear the deer before I see her: a cracked twig, the sound of chewing.
Sun through thin clouds. A female cardinal foraging under the lilac picks up a twig, examines it, and sets it down again. Through the lilac limbs I spot the long legs of a deer picking her way across the road bank.
A raven with something red in its beak. Three running deer causing a fourth to raise and lower her tail. Patches of gold appear among the clouds.
Under a cacophony of jays, a doe and two fawns with their spots all gone graze just inside the edge of the woods. One does a sudden dance, spinning around to elude a fly.
Too cold for all but one hardy field cricket. In the meadow, the half-grown twin fawns have a go at their mother’s milk, one on each side. A small flock of geese go over, bugling.
Overcast and quiet. A doe and two fawns melt into the woods when I come out. In the meadow, this morning’s bindweed trumpets are already vibrating with bumblebees.
From fresh green to dark green to yellow and brown, the bracken is in a perpetual state of resurrection. Two fawns rush past, tormented by flies.
Cool as an autumn morning, with twittering goldfinches in lieu of yellow leaves. Just inside the woods’ edge, two deer chase back and forth, pausing for breath six feet apart.
Clear at sunrise with an eyelash moon and a deer grazing just inside the woods’ edge. A Cooper’s hawk calls from atop the tallest black locust and flies off to the east.