Saturday, December 20, 2008

Bambi the one-horned deer


Our visitor looks for browse under the old apple trees. Good luck Fella!


A decent look at our deer's unbalanced rack.


Last year we had a good sized young spike buck transit the yard all Winter. I saw him under the old apple trees several times but never got a photo. He actually had the longest pair of spike horns I've ever seen, about 10 inches long. Well, this evening another or the same young buck crossed the yard via the old apple trees with an even odder rack. This deer had a small two-point horn on one side and nothing (or just a little stub) on the other. As you can see from the pictures, he looks pretty fat and appears to be in good shape which is important at this point in the year. It's a long slog till Spring. Maybe this is the same deer as last year, and he just has a different irregular rack. Pretty hard to tell from up on the deck, and I didn't feel like running him down to take a closer look. After all, the snow's pretty deep .

p.s. After originally posting this I had an additional thought on how Bambi might have gotten his wretched rack. He could have had the right horn broken fighting with other bucks during the rut.

1 comment:

Jen at Cabin Fever said...

Pretty young buck. You're probably right, got into a fight during the rut. Isn't amazing how they just wander out into the open plain as day once hunting season ends? Wildlife is a lot smarter than most people give credit.

Enjoy the snow headed our way!!