A Blue-eyed Crow And Spotted Fawns

It is such a pleasure to spend time in the shade garden on a hot day.  I saw several crows fly out of the garden as I approached.  They made a very noisy departure.  Ed arrived shortly after I did.  One bird remained in the garden.  We decided to stay, mind our own business, and ignore the bird.  Ed did well with that.  He chose a spot to weed on the other side of the garden.  I did that too but I faced where the bird was so I could watch it.  It was obvious to me that for whatever reason the bird could not fly.  When I took a break and sat on the bench to drink some water I took a picture of the crow.  We try to stick to a let the wildlife be wildlife policy here.  I tried but  just had to get a closer look.  

The bird turned out to be a baby crow.   It had a short tail,  blue eyes and  prominent mouth markings.  Right after I took the picture, the crow hopped  to get away from me and bumped into a cage over where Ed was working.  To get away from Ed the bird hopped into a patch of nettles and across some bags of leaves. Once out in the short grass the bird hopped some and walked some.  Once the bird was out in the open, the crows in the pines made all kinds of  unusual  sounds.  The baby crow seemed to change direction in response.   When the baby reached the gravel lane one large black crow flew into a big pine tree across the road from us.  That baby bird hopped and walked straight down the lane, but when it got to the road it stopped.   I didn't stop think about it.  I purposely frightened that baby bird into making a fast trip across the road.  Given the proper motivation he could hop pretty fast.  We were all happy when the baby bird disappeared beneath the tree where Mom was waiting!

After making our home here in  close proximity to the deer population for more than 20 years, we really have to work at it to get  them to keep their distance.  They are somewhat afraid of Ed, but usually pay no attention to me.  Don't get me wrong.   I love watching them from the living room window.  This year we have a doe with twins and another with one a rather small baby who never seems to be far away from the garden.  They are comfortable to nurse while we are watching and regularly bring the fawns to romp, play and practice running very fast on the short grass. The doe with a single fawn seems to leave it close to us for safekeeping. A couple of weeks ago Ed snapped its picture over by his garden shed.  This time the fawn was hidden among  weeds right in the garden.  I did not even see the animal until I was just a few feet away.  Older now the fawn got up and ran away.  All this is wonderful fun but we are experiencing drought conditions.  Deer eating my favorite plants, even pretty little fawns, does not make me happy.

Imagine my horror when I discovered that I forgot to replace the cage on the lettuce bed  after I had picked lettuce in the morning.  Little deer footprints were everywhere. We replaced the cage and Ed watered.  Locking the barn door after the horse has been stolen is seldom effective  At least one lettuce plant is still unmolested.  It is that spot of red just behind my shadow's  shoulder.  It came up by itself from last year's seed.  It's a lucky thing that Ed did not transplant it into the bed with the others.  What our lettuce and the garden needs now is rain.  Maybe those spotted fawns are not all that cute.

Rainy Day Visitors

They say a picture is worth a thousand words.  I'm not sure this picture qualifies for quite that many.  Still over the last two days, I have had a wonderful time watching the wild turkeys with their babies and the deer with theirs.

During yesterday morning's light rain, the turkeys arrived first.  Four hens in a line walked slowly across Ed's newly mowed grass. I have often seen turkeys walk in single file, but not this time.  Behind them were the five babies also in a line.  They traveled from east to west eating whatever popped up in their path.  When they reached the area behind the shade garden, they stopped.  The adults flapped their wings and shook like wet dogs and the babies followed suit.  Next they lined up again, but with the babies in front this time.  I thought for sure they would disappear into the tall grass, but they stayed in the short grass.  One hen stayed with the babies and the others wandered off on their own.  The five babies followed what I assume is their mom in a fascinating game of follow the leader.  When she ate, they ate.  When she hopped up on Ed's stone wall they all managed to climb up there to join her.  She flapped her wings and they flapped theirs.  She sat up there preened her feathers and they preened too.  I got a great look at the babies through my binoculars.  Not everyone would say that wild turkeys have a pretty face, but these babies are still cute!  When mom took a big hop down to the ground, the babies flew to join her.  I enjoyed all this turkey activity so much, but  just when I though I should be doing something more productive, a mother deer and her two fawns entered the mowed area from beneath the trees.  For a time the deer and turkeys seemed to ignore each other, however one of those twin fawns is rambunctious.  He ran at top speed skidding on the wet grass, narrowly missing his mom and the other fawn and jumped, landing right behind one of the turkey hens goosing her with his nose and front feet and making her hop  out of the way.  This caused all of the turkeys to gather back in a group and the Mother deer seemed to take a dim view of the fawn's behavior herding her family in the other direction away from the turkeys.  This was all wonderful fun and I thought the show was over.

After a night of rain, this  morning everything in the garden was wet.  Ed headed out to the inside of the garden square to try a little weeding.  When I looked outside I was surprised to see the turkeys right back here again. The fact that Ed was out there weeding seemed to make no difference to the turkeys.  Before I could join him a loud clap of thunder sent Ed inside.  It was followed by a period of heavy rain.  We could not see the garden for a time, let alone the turkeys.  As soon as the rain let up a little the turkeys were back behaving much the same as yesterday. This time they were really wet and when the sun came out all of the turkeys made their way to the top of Ed's  stone wall.  They flapped and preened.  A couple of the babies sat right down there on top of the wall. They were there for some time.  One of the hens was facing the woods and it was at that moment that Mother deer and her two fawns emerged from beneath the trees.  Remembering yesterday's fun the  rambunctious fawn streaked toward the turkeys.  As he got close to the birds he realized that they were towering over his head.  A turkey hen is a very large bird and is a lot more intimidating when it is facing you.  The fawn skidded to a stop just short of the stone wall.  He abruptly turned flashing his white tail and headed back to the safety of  Mom and the rest of the deer family.   The turkeys took their own sweet time getting down from the wall. The hens did not fly!

All during this morning's light drizzle, the turkeys and the deer wandered around in separate groups enjoying the short grass.  If any of them went into the garden I never caught them.  By this afternoon the drizzle remained, but the visitors were gone.  It had been quite a show!  I wonder id they will be back for an encore?