Dear Deer: Thank You

Common Name: White-Tailed Deer

Scientific Name: Odocoileus virginianus

Type: Mammal

Diet: Herbivore

Group Name: Herd

Average Life Span in Captivity: 6 to 14 years

Size: 6 to 7.75 feet

Weight: 110 to 300 pounds

White-tailed deer, the smallest members of the North American deer family, are found from southern Canada to South America.

Clear, high voices sing out of sync, but the sound is sweet. It’s my tenth birthday. Five friends are seated around the table. Mom places my cake in the center. It’s a yellow frosted butterfly; pastel candies dot the wings. I’m embarrassed when I must blow twice to extinguish all the pink candles.

“Your wish won’t come true now,” Bethie informs me. She lives across the street and is eight months older but two grades ahead in school. She’s really smart and I idolize her.

When we move into the living room, everyone holds a brightly wrapped gift. I open my presents one by one: a suede purse with rawhide fringes, a beaded headband, a set of water colours, and the latest Nancy Drew book. I’ve saved Bethie’s ’til last. It’s a flat, flowered box tied with matching ribbon. A wire choker with a dangling silver horse is nestled inside on a bed of cotton batting.

Bethie scoots over to fasten it around my neck. The charm feels cold against my skin. “They didn’t have one with a deer on it, but horses are cooler anyway.” She adds the last part airily, as though it’s of no consequence. I swallow my disappointment and pretend the new choker sports my favourite animal. Always smitten with Bambi, I’ve become even more infatuated with white-tailed deer since completing a class science project about them.

When white-tailed deer gather together and trample down snow and grass in a particular area, it is called a "deer yard." White-tailed deer are herbivores, leisurely grazing on most available plant foods. Their stomachs allow them to digest a varied diet, including leaves, twigs, fruits and nuts, grass, corn, alfalfa, and even lichens and fungi.

The air is cold. Rubbing hands and huddling further into my jacket. My boot scuffs a hunk of frozen sod churned up by the plow a couple months ago. The dull ochre grass reminds me of a feral cat’s mangy coat, all grizzled and gnarly. Trees line the driveway, and their bare branches grasp at the leaden sky with bony fingers. I yearn for green, but it will be a long time coming. It always is, here in Nova Scotia. I swear we have the longest, coldest springs anywhere. I sigh without meaning to and head toward the ditch swollen with last night’s rain. The pussy willows should start budding soon.

It’s early April and the earth is gripped by a pandemic that still seems surreal. Graphic news clips and sober statistics contradict my disbelief. That’s why I’m out here in the yard. I can only take so much truth at a time. Mandatory isolation means this piece of tired ground has hemmed us in for the better part of two weeks. Even after the period of confinement is up, it’s clear the status quo won’t change significantly until the virus is controlled. Quite suddenly, the world has shrunk. It’s a humbling thought and one that invites shame as I recognize my previous complacency. It stares me in the face knowing that just days ago, my spouse and I were strolling the shell-strewn sands of our favourite Florida beach.

Circumstances forced us to drive back earlier than planned. It was harrowing. Heading northward along highways jammed with countless other snowbirds, I pictured sinister Covid-19 vectors hovering everywhere. Through the night, huge trucks ground gears, streaming vehicles whined, and helicopters circled like odious drones overhead. A black balloon inflated in my chest when I considered us all in this implausible race against time. We grew increasingly

mindful as we neared home and had to rely on others to drop off the grocery order we completed online. Many items were not available. A jug of Clorox, not family members, waited on our stoop to greet us when we arrived.

Inertia sets in; the days puddle one into the next and our house seems empty. I miss the dogs who are still staying with our daughter. When will they be home with us again? I’m increasingly grateful for the yard. This outdoor space, dull and bleak at the moment, is a form of sanctuary. Lately, it seems I’m either puttering around outside or paused at a window so nature can take a front seat. When everything else has changed, this reassuring constancy provides a form of solace.

I stand at the counter measuring coffee. Movement catches my eye and I look up to see two does just beyond the glass. Coats are a dull grey-brown, not unlike the world around them. With their heads bent to the ground they graze, peacefully unaware of my presence. Yesterday, I was in the woods behind the barn searching for early signs of mayflowers and discovered a spot where the grass and snow had been tamped to create a small clearing. From my vantage point against the whitewashed boards, I discerned six forms, but only barely. I thought of my grandmother’s embroidery. It appeared the deer had been tatted into a richly textured tapestry with her deft hand.

Female deer, called does, give birth to one to three young at a time, usually in May or June and after a gestation period of seven months. Young deer, called fawns, wear a reddish-brown coat with white spots that helps them blend in with the forest.

May arrives and though it’s still chilly, we’re encouraged to witness all the new life around us. Plumping buds finger slender branches and I think of a cellist about to make music. Puddles of limp leaves promise my beloved foxgloves will spike to sway beneath next month’s sun; everything has been touched with a tenuous, welcome light. We decide not to wait until the end of June to move to our cottage. Now seems like the right time.

Health guidelines recommend avoiding unnecessary driving so front-line workers won’t be exposed to further risk. Feeling like sneaky teenagers, we reason the roads are almost empty and that it will be even easier for us to isolate in our small summer community. We stock the vehicle with accumulated dry goods and all our necessities. Compared only with hasty trips to the supermarket, the forty-minute drive seems expansive.

In the heat of summer, deer typically inhabit fields and meadows using clumps of broad-leaved and coniferous forests for shade.

We’ve been in Barrington for a week, happily working in the yard and digging in the garden. The days are busy and full. Though we speak with family and friends regularly, our arms long to encircle familiar girths and share in the simple pleasure of being together in the ways we’ve always known. It’s meager comfort to realize people around the globe are feeling the same way. One evening, I walk to the waterfront and am amazed to spy deer tracks in the sand. Thrilled, I pick my way over a hedge of beach stones and follow them into the thicket skirting the shoreline. My sneakers sink into the apricot carpet of fallen pine needles when I enter the woods. I see no sign of the deer yet, but the mere possibility of doing so lifts my spirits. It’s remarkable that a sighting is more likely to occur near our home on the outskirts of town than here, where we’re immersed in an old-growth forest.

Time passes and the days weave until the province announces the long-anticipated loosening of restrictions. It’s impossible to describe the peculiar confusion I experience. I’m feeling enormously relieved but strangely regretful as well. Once our safe little capsule is popped, the demands of the “other” world will intrude. This unexpected ambivalence shocks me. We visit our daughter two hours away and the reunion is sweet. We make plans to see our son in New Brunswick and this boosts us further. Now that we’ve been able to collect our two Yorkies, we’re gifted with a new appreciation for the uncomplicated pleasure they’ve always brought into our lives.

It’s just after dawn in early July. I’m walking along the wooded path through the beach park. The tidal marsh is verdant, dotted with purple irises and rimmed with wild salt roses. The lanes of seawater cutting through are like the sky: soft blue. I watch a yellow finch seesaw toward a moss-draped tree, then listen as lilting trills pierce the stillness. Without warning, a doe appears through a break in the leaves. Her sheath is polished maple, her ears pricked and silken. Liquid eyes are dark and wide. Two dappled fawns, spare as whippets, waver at her shins. Their spots bring to mind foam freckles shimmying on the surface of a clear amber stream. Mother’s tail flickers as she bends to the sun-sparked grass. The little ones, sudden marionettes on splintered strings, gambol ahead. Standing in place, I’ve entered a hallowed room where a virus-riddled reality cannot intrude. I breathe out and know joy, pure and simple. In this perfect moment I’m convinced euphoria still lives in this weary world.

In the wild, white-tails, particularly the young, are preyed upon by bobcats, mountain lions, and coyotes. They use speed and agility to outrun predators, sprinting up to 30 miles per hour and leaping as high as 10 feet and as far as 30 feet in a single bound. White-tailed deer can jump vertically more than 2.5 metres and horizontally 9 metres, which is almost the length of a school bus. They swim well and can escape from predators through large streams and lakes.

It’s mid-August. We drive along a back road that cuts through a barren. The brook running through looks thick and loamy. The vegetation is veiled in a quieter shade of green and

the first lavender asters fleck the ditch. The goldenrod will soon follow. I’m conscious of a subdued but familiar melancholy that visits every year at this time. I yearn to savour the honeyed sweetness of summer for just a little longer. My wants seem frivolous in the face of all that’s happening but are no less insistent than they’ve been in the past. Those of us in eastern Canada are still ensconced in our “Atlantic Bubble,” living almost as though nothing’s amiss. Only the newscasts, which I try to avoid, remind me the outside world is very much in flux. The pandemic still threatens to spiral out of control in many places.

Our conversation is interrupted suddenly. “Watch out!” I caution. The words are barely out when a large deer sails over the hood of our slowing car. Hearts in our throats, we watch as she lands on the opposite bank and springs through the heath. Her uplifted tail is a bright beacon bobbing off into a distant row of spruce. A bedraggled coyote, his pursuit foiled, waits in the gully closest to me. Through the car window, I watch him turn and slink back the way he came. I cheer the doe, grateful we intercepted when we did. The awe of that encounter has stayed with me since.

Male deer, called bucks, are easily recognizable in the summer and fall by their prominent set of antlers, which are grown annually and fall off in the winter. Only the bucks grow antlers, which bear a number of tines, or sharp points. During the mating season, also called the rut, bucks fight over territory by using their antlers in sparring matches.

“There! I think we’ve got her done now.” He gives a final grunt as the heavy unit is nudged into place on the wall. It's October and a new heat pump has just been installed at our house in town. Afterward, while imparting operation instructions, the friendly electrician pauses mid-sentence. He’s ready to explain the control panel above the window when he spies two young bucks crouched beside the stone wall, their stubby antlers locked. They dance. I’ve never witnessed this before and am filled with wonder that matches his own, though for a different reason.

Although previously the white-tailed deer population were depleted by unrestricted hunting in the United States, strict game-management measures have helped restore the population.

“You actually have two bucks that visit your property?” He shakes his head. “I’ll be back next month when hunting season opens.”

I ignore the wink. Is he joking? Alarm flares and I tell him the thickly wooded area behind us is in a protected zone because of its proximity to the elementary school at the top of the hill. I hope my relief doesn’t show.

 A couple weeks later, my aunt is visiting. Four deer are nosing the faded grass in the ditch; a buck is just visible in the background. Delighted to point them out, I feel almost slapped when she’s dismissive.

“Those things are a pest! They eat everything in sight, they pose a hazard to drivers, and they carry ticks. They’re everywhere and it’s time for a cull.” That was her tidy summation of the gentle creatures that have added such pleasure to my days during this long, uncertain time. I’m startled to realize not everyone feels the way I do. My disappointment is almost childlike. I change the subject.

Acorns are a favourite autumn food of white-tailed deer in Canada.

The second-storey window is grimy, still streaked with salt blooms from last winter’s storms. I peer through binoculars, watching a herd of six deer far off in the field on the north side of the house. Three are lying down; one is rubbing against the withered bark of a lone oak tree. I study the white muzzle and lambent eyes of another. Her ashen coat shivers as she curves into rusted grass stitched with starbursts of spent Queen Anne’s lace and brittle stalks of Pearly Everlasting. Her head lifts, she twists and her melted gaze threads to mine through the thin lens. I feel a frisson of recognition.

A smaller doe startles, ears cocked, eyes wide. She bolts to slot herself seamlessly into spaces between sparse alders, disappears with unerring precision. Branches barely waver as she passes from one portal to the next. I pick out the narrow groove of a deer trail cut through the undergrowth there and marvel yet again at the quiet, graceful way these animals inhabit the earth, leaving scant evidence of their presence. Placing the glasses on the wide sill, I feel tension uncoiling deep within and am appreciative of the hopefulness that settles its comforting mantle around me. Inexplicably, memory delivers me back to that long ago birthday celebration. I wonder where Bethie is now and if she still loves horses the same way she did back then.

Occasionally venturing out in the daylight hours, white-tailed deer are primarily nocturnal or crepuscular, browsing mainly at dawn and dusk.

Later that week I stand at the window, a mug warm in my hands. I look up to see a doe and her young one on the side lawn. They pause by a tree where a few golden apples still cling to bare branches at the crown. When the doe saunters toward the barn, her watchful fawn stays rooted in place. The parent looks back once before turning to rejoin her offspring. The fawn leans into soft hide as the mother licks the smooth coat recently cleared of its white splotches. The timeless tableau is stunningly human, almost unspeakably tender. Without warning, the doe’s head nods, her tail flicks, and she’s off tangling into the grass; it’s pulled like taffy this morning, sugar strung in the cold. Almost invisible, she remains motionless by the wall.

She stands watching the baby, her eyes never straying, though it appears she’s nonchalant. I smile, thinking about the universal nature of invisible threads connecting mothers everywhere. The fawn, slightly wobbly, begins moving in the opposite direction. The doe lifts her head and the black of her eyes and nose are sharply defined. The young one finally picks his way over to her side. Then, all I see are the two shocks of white tail as they leap from sight. I can hardly wait until they return. The certainty of knowing they will fills all the empty spaces inside me.

During the winter, white-tailed deer generally keep to forests, preferring coniferous stands that provide shelter from the harsh elements.

It’s late November, casualty numbers are on the rise and the Atlantic Bubble has broken. The second wave of Covid-19 is taking its shocking toll on Canada and the world at large. Vaccines have been announced but it’s unclear how and when they’ll be distributed. Like many, we’ve put up the Christmas tree early this year, hoping to glean a bit of cheer from the gathered lights. The holiday season looms, fraught with doubt. It appears we’ll be celebrating in isolation for the first time ever. It’s hard to think about. The news is grim, and I feel compelled to watch now. The truth is not easy, but necessary.

Winter is waiting to officially announce itself. It won’t be long now. I think ahead and picture the yard covered with a deep layer of snow. The forest beyond the wall is hushed and the lichen drips from old conifers in slow silvered streams. There is no hint of green. The sky is white and soundless. I see myself scattering tulip petals that will lay like scarlet hearts on the frozen crust of ground. Afterward, through mullioned glass, I’ll watch the deer silent in the lilac dusk. They’ll be balancing ecstatic on spindled hooves, swallowing the valentines I’ve left for them.