Friday, November 19, 2010

black-tailed deer ~ 11/19/10 ~ at home


Columbian black-tailed deer
Odocoileus hemionus columbianus

I believe these three are the mother and her twin females that I spotted back in May of this year. The buck that visited at the end of October stayed around for a couple days and is now gone. I'll admit, I was a little nervous taking out the trash for a few days, because he liked to hang around under the oak tree next to our bins and he'd startle me as he quickly got up from his rest.

Three things to note: 1) the deer seem to love the end of our driveway as a gathering and resting spot, 2) notice the bright green grass in November, and 3) notice the darker winter coat than the chocolate brown in spring.

ps 01/23/11 - For those friends who have dismissed my research into figuring out which subspecies of deer we have on the Central Coast of California, I present this great CDFG pdf, with much thanks to Jim Coda.

5 comments:

TexWisGirl said...

They are so beautiful! What wonderful "gangs" you have, loitering on the corner. :)

We still have a bit of green here in the fields in Texas too. But they're predicting 40s for the high next week so I'm sure it'll fade. For now my horses are still happy. :)

P.S. Thanks for the comment on the "heart" being my symbol. Hadn't made that correlation. Will have to look for more of that! :)

Katie (Nature ID) said...

twg, I'd rather have the deer gangs than the teenage kids who try to sneak through here to smoke in the park.

This is just the beginning of the green around here with the onset of winter rains. Does it snow where you are?

Erica Lea said...

Ah, darn it, and here I was going to offer our teen gangs in exchange for your deer;-) Looks like you have a magical setting! Those deer don't look too stressed by your appearance - they know a good place when they find it:-)Seems like we've been getting more rain than usual this fall down here, which is nice. Hope it continues!

troutbirder said...

I must say they have unusual ears compared to our whitetails. How unusual to have these rare deer so close to you.

Katie (Nature ID) said...

Haha, Erica. It helps not having a fence to keep the deer out. We also often get tourists parked in front of our garage to take pictures of the deer here.

Mr. T, big ears is one of the identifying traits of the black-tailed deer.