Dreamin'

At the end of summer, after temperatures had been in the 90s in July, I couldn’t help but remember and dream of days of low temperatures and deep snow. Now a lot of people think that a winter with little snow and mild temperatures is a good winter, but they are wrong! wrong! wrong!

Why are they wrong? They’re wrong because many of our steams depend on spring snowmelt for their water supply,

 

Because our native brook trout depend on those streams' cold, clean water,

Because tree seedlings are protected from the browsing of overabundant deer by deep snow,

Because many plants’ seeds have an internal dormancy that is best broken by a long period of cold temperatures.

I also have selfish reasons for liking cold and snow: I’d rather clear snow than mow grass, 

I can follow the wanderings of wildlife by their tracks in the snow,

I can get warm more easily than I can cool off, and I’ve always enjoyed traveling on skis and snowshoes,

Yup, I like cold and snow –

And I’m not the only one –

But now the winters aren’t as cold and what snow there is doesn’t last as long and it’s likely to get worse – thanks to the changing climate.

Fawns and More

White-tailed deer usually have their fawns during the first two weeks of June, but some are born earlier and some later depending on when the does were impregnated. By the time the fawns are a week old they’re quite mobile, easily able to outrun all but the fastest humans.

These are July’s videos from a camera trap on the hill above the house. The video features a pair of white-tail fawns born to a doe who’s been our neighbor for several years. Last year she had twins as well, a female and a male. The young female still spends time with her mother, but the young buck is on his own and will soon disperse to establish a new home range some distance away.

Toward the end of July this year's fawns were still nursing but their mother was starting to put them off because nursing two fawns is more of a drain on her energy than are pregnancy, winter weather or either of the two annual molts. When the fawns are about ten weeks old the doe will be ready to fully wean them so she can molt and have the resources to grow an insulating winter coat.

Also by the end of July the fawns were beginning to lose their camouflaging spots since they’ll soon be able to outrun most predators.

Here they are, the fawns and the others that appeared in front of the camera in June and July–

 

The camera is back in place to see what other wildlife appears and to watch the fawns grow as the seasons pass.