White-tailed Deer Fawn Survival
Both behaviorally and physically, White-tailed Deer fawns have adaptations that enhance their survival – they remain lying down and motionless for their first few weeks while their mother is off foraging and stir only when she returns periodically to nurse them. They are scentless for their first few days, and dappled coats enable them to be well camouflaged. Reduced heart rate and breathing when danger is nearby also increase their ability not to be noticed.
Even so, fawns have a low life expectancy. Once detected by a predator, they are very vulnerable. Black Bears and Coyotes, especially, are quick to take advantage of this easy meal. Proof of this can be found in the scat of these predators. (Inset photo: Black Bear scat containing the hair and bones of a fawn).
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Moose Incisor Scrapings
In the winter Moose feed mainly by browsing on twigs and by scraping bark off of trees. Like White-tailed Deer and other ruminants, Moose lack incisors in their upper jaw; they bite off their food between their lower incisors and a hard pad on the upper gum.
An obvious sign of Moose is the “incisor scrapes” they make when removing bark from trees with their lower incisors. An upwards movement of their head enables them to scrape a strip of bark from the tree. Sometimes instead of a clean scrape, neatly cut at both ends, you will see shredded bits of bark flapping at the top of a scrape. This occurs when a Moose begins a scrape and then grabs the piece of bark between its incisors and hard palate and pulls it upwards, peeling off a strip.
When in Moose habitat, look for the incisor scrapes of Moose on Red and Striped Maple, Willow, Trembling Aspen, Balsam Fir and Mountain Ash. Moose scrapings can be found starting as low as ten inches from the ground and can extend as high as eight feet (most likely made by a Moose standing on snow).
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White-tailed Deer Giving Birth
White-tailed does give birth at the end of May and the beginning of June. A doe giving birth for the first time usually has one fawn; in subsequent years, two or three fawns are common. For the first three or four days after it is born, a fawn is odorless and is well camouflaged thanks to its spotted coat.
During this time the mother leaves her offspring (who remain motionless during her absence) and goes off to feed. (It can be three weeks or so before the fawns follow their mother when she feeds.) The doe stays away as much as possible from her fawns during these first days and weeks to prevent her own body scent from giving away their location. She returns to nurse her young eight to ten times in a twenty-four-hour period.
People discovering what looks to them like an abandoned fawn should know that although the doe may not be in sight, she most likely is within hearing distance and is probably watching them. The fawn has not been abandoned and should not be disturbed. (Thanks to Erin Donahue, who took this photograph.)
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White-tailed Deer Scent-Marking
Scent-marking plays an important communication role in the animal world. A variety of species use glandular secretions to convey (for some distance) messages. From beavers spreading castoreum on scent mounds to fishers leaving their scent every time their hind feet touch the ground, the woods are alive with messages often undetected by most humans. Some of these are left by White-tailed Deer, which have two primary scent-marking behaviors: antler rubbing and scrapes.
One used to associate an antler rub with the act of a buck removing drying velvet from its antlers. However, it turns out that very few rubs are made by deer removing antler velvet, a process that’s normally completed within 24 hours. Instead, most rubs are made by relatively few dominant bucks to signal their readiness to breed and to mark their territory.
All White-tailed Deer possess specialized forehead glands that become increasingly active in autumn, particularly in adult males. All bucks spread their scent by rubbing their foreheads (which contain specialized scent glands) against trees and shrubs that have smooth bark, few, if any, lower limbs and are ½” to 4” in diameter. (Older bucks also will rub trees six or more inches in diameter.) In the Northeast, Trembling Aspen, Staghorn Sumac, Red Maple, and willows are often used for this purpose.
Mature, socially high-ranking bucks exude greater amounts of the glandular secretion than do younger males or females. They begin marking their territory soon after losing velvet and continue marking until they cast their antlers in December or January. The chemical signals left at a rub site tend to suppress the aggressiveness and sex drive of young males. However, those same signals stimulate females. The amount of rubbing an individual buck does depends on the level of testosterone in his blood, which in turn is largely determined by the animal’s age and dominance status.
We may not be able to detect the chemicals on a rub, but it’s hard to miss the sight of the light-colored blazes that magically appear in the woods at this time of year. (Photo: White-tailed Deer rub on Staghorn Sumac. Thanks to Chiho Kaneko and Jeffrey Hamelman for photo op.)
Three-month-old Fawns Soon To Lose Spots
By the end of August, White-tailed Deer fawns are about three months old. Their mother weans them between two and four months of age and during this time they molt, losing their white spots. A new gray-brown winter coat replaces the coat they were born with.
White-tailed Deer Diet In Transition
Even if you didn’t know that a white-tailed deer’s diet changes in the fall, their scat would be a dead giveaway. Its texture and formation are excellent indicators of what a deer has been eating. During the summer, individual pellets are often lumped together due to the moisture content of their summer diet (grasses, clover, alfalfa, apples and other herbaceous food). As winter approaches, deer transition to a diet of twigs, leaves and acorns which results in the formation of individual, dry pellets. At this time of year, it is possible to find both forms of deer scat.
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White-tailed Deer Scraping Bark
During the winter, white-tailed deer browse on the twigs, buds and bark of trees. Deer have incisors in the front of their bottom jaw, but none in the front of their top jaw, just a hard palate. They grip the bark with their bottom front incisors and scrape their jaw upwards, leaving behind grooves the width of their bottom incisors. Often there are frayed ends of bark at the top end of the groove, due to the deer having to use its hard palate and incisors, rather than two sets of incisors, to separate the bark from the tree. Favorite trees include red and striped maples, oaks, poplar, pines, hemlock, arborvitae and balsam fir.
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