Odocoileus virginianus
Copyright, Charles S. Lewallen
White-tailed Deer are the
largest wild animals in Northern Virginia. They are found in
forests,
fields,
brushy areas, streams, and marshes.
We are now seeing them more in gardens, lawns, and along
highways too. White-tailed Deer are
reddish-brown with a white belly and tail in Summer. In
Winter, the reddish-brown changes to
grayish-brown. Male deer, called bucks,
have antlers, up to three feet across, on their heads.
Female deer, called does, and baby deer, called fawns, do
not have antlers. A large buck can be four
feet tall and weigh up to 300 pounds. Females are
smaller. White-tailed Deer are
mostly nocturnal,
but can be seen any time of day. They do most of their
feeding early in the morning or when the sun is going
down. Copyright, Roberta Stacy,
http://homepage.mac.com/rstacy/ Nearctica.com White-tailed Deer form
small groups for much of the year. There are two kinds of
deer groups. One is a mother deer and her fawns. One female
deer may have up to three fawns at a time. The other type of
group is made up of between three and five bucks. Bucks try to prove their
dominance (who's toughest and in charge) by ramming each
other, as well as kicking and flailing with their legs.
Bucks also mark their territory
by making rubbing their antlers on trees. In the Winter,
White-tailed Deer meet up and form herds, sometimes with
more than a hundred deer. Winter is also mating
season. A doe has from one to
three fawns in a litter.
It usually depends on the age of the doe and how much food
is around. Fawns stay with their mother for almost a year.
She drives them off before she has a new litter. A doe leaves her fawns
hidden in brush while she feeds. Sometimes she leaves them
for up to four hours. They do not move while she is gone.
They have extra white spots on their coats which help
camouflage
them.
Nature Works
A mother doe takes no
chances with her young. If a fawn poops near the hiding
place, the mother will even eat it so that no
predators
can find them. If the mother doe must run from a threat, the
fawns can follow her by her white tail, which flashes while
she runs. White-tailed Deer run
very fast, up to 36 miles per hour. They are great swimmers
and can leap far as well. Deer can leap over eight feet high
and thirty feet long. A deer bed is an oval
depression in leaves. They always sleep in places protected
with cover. Copyright, Bruce
Hayward Justin W.
Moore White-tailed Deer are
herbivores,
but they eat a wide variety of foods, including green plants
in the Summer; acorns,
fruits and nuts in the Fall; and twigs
in the Winter. They also eat fungi
when they can get it. A list of plants deer eat
includes: oaks, maples, pines, Sassafras, Witch Hazel,
Flowering Dogwood, Smooth Sumac, Japanese Honeysuckle, Black
Willow, Black Cherry, hawthorns, Greenbrier, rose,
Switchgrass, viburnums, blackberries, blueberries, Common
Elderberry, American Beech, American Hornbeam, Sweetfern,
Meadowsweet, American Elm, wintergreen, American Holly,
Mountain Laurel, ferns, goldenrods, Eastern Redcedar,
sedges, Poison Ivy, grasses,
aquatic
plants, and many others. Some plants deer favor
certain times of the year, while they ignore them at other
times of year. White-tailed Deer also
eat a lot of garden plants, vegetables, and ornamental trees
from people's yards. When a deer is nervous it
will snort and stamp its feet. When it is alarmed it
automatically raises its tail. Sometimes, when you startle a
deer, all you see is a flash of white disappearing into the
woods.
Fred Siskind, Huntley Meadows Park
Deer use many species of
plants as cover and shelter,
including young leafy trees, such as maples, pines, American
Beech, American Elm, Eastern Redcedar, Black Locust, oaks,
Yellow Poplar, Sassafras, American Sycamore, Sweetgum, and
Black Willow. Other cover includes shrubs
and tall plants, such as cattails and reeds. Bucks shed their antlers
in late Winter, after the breeding
season. They grow new ones in the Spring, covered with
"velvet," a soft covering. Antlers lose the velvet in late
August. Deer have few predators.
Occasionally, a fox, eagle, or dog will kill a young fawn.
Most deer are killed by hunters or cars.
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Mark
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Mark
Moran