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Wednesday, August 3, 2016

Triplets

 As I let the pack out into the back yard this morning to do their business I had this mother deer (far right on hill) and three same size deer that appeared to be about one year (+-) old. The two deer were together watching myself and the dogs and the third deer was off a few yards to the left but I could not get all three in the same photo. We were only about 20' apart but I knew if I walked around to get all three in the photo that one or all would bound off so I just talked to them and took three photos.
 If these are truly triplets then it is the first I have seen triplets around our house. They were curious about the dogs which just ignore them and did not bark. Our dogs have been trained not to bark at deer and to just ignore them. Off to my right there was a mother deer on the trail that I use to haul firewood with two little tiny babies in spots. They were so small I couldn't get a good photo of them in the tall grasses.
It could be that what I thought was triplets was actually twins and the mother picked up a third fawn that may have been orphaned or abandoned by its mother. We used to have a doe that hung around our house most of its life and a fawn had broken its leg and its mother wouldn't have anything to do with it. Forced it off to die. The mother (We called her Daisy) adopted it and helped it survive until it was old enough to be on its own. That may be the mother deer that is in the background of the top photo. Daisy protected that little fawn along with her own and kept it alive. It stayed with her well into adulthood. We actually saw Daisy protect that fawn from its own mother who tried to harm it. Daisy was one of the toughest and compassionate deer that we have ever come to know. Daisy was easy to spot as she had a scar put on her side by a mountain lion that ran from her neck to her back leg. Tough - we watched her stomp a coyote who went after one of her fawns once. She was a fearless mother who was also tender and compassionate. That could be the case here if that is her daughter - she could have adopted an orphaned fawn with twins to raise.

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