October 29 -- The Return Of The Coues Deer Family

There was a storm due to come in (but it wimped out) so the sunrise was blah. But there was a near-full moon, momentarily obscured by passing wisps of clouds, so I got out my 500 f/4 lens, braced it against a back deck railing, aim the lens up, and --

It was still a bit dark, so without the sun it was hard to capture the passing clouds. I got an early phone call; my friend Helen was on the road to Tucson for a 2-day class, and was calling to let me know there was lightning off to the northwest, and that it might be coming Portal way. She knew I was "into" lightning photography, so I got my camera and tripod ready -- and nothing. Nothing all day. Which was ok, as capturing lightning during the day is a challenge, as it is of course brighter than during the night, so if you keep the shutter open you'll end up with massive overexposure. What you really need is a lightning "trigger" that opens up the shutter when it detects a lightning strike -- which I don't have, but come to think of it, I just might check online... 

At around 8am I glanced out the back sliding glass door -- and saw the Coues deer family; they were drinking at the water feature which, if you remember, is the original one that I'd planned to dismantle, but the deer shied away from using anything that looked different, so I restored the original. And now they're back. If I opened the sliding glass door they're hear it and go back into the brush -- which they did the day before -- so I shot through the glass. (And I'd pushed the screen door open at sunrise, which I do every day so I don't have to shoot through that, too.) They saw my motion, but didn't seem to be particularly disturbed, so I got some good photos. And the glass was fairly clean, too. 

As you can see, there is Mom and 3 fawns. After posting the photos on Facebook I found out that does usually only have 2 fawns at a time, usually twins (or looking alike), and I believe that's the two in the middle. The one off to the left is in all likelihood an "adoptee" whose real mother may have somehow been killed, and started tagging along with the family. Does may reject the orphan, or, as seems the case here, accept it, or at least not push it away. But the little tyke does seem to be somewhat apart, and looks bewildered and a bit lost when the 2 fawns and Mom head back into the brush, especially if they've been startled and take off like a shot. So because of his "outsider"status he's my favorite of the family -- and how can you resist a face like this -- 

Though I sometimes cringe when I hear the word, it's appropriate here -- CUTE!  And I just hope he makes it.. Here's my favorite photo of the Family, with one of the fawn twins peering out beneath Mom -- 

A lot of my FB "friends" are worried they might get shot by hunters. Helen said hunters have to stay at least 1/4 of a mile from an inhabited building, and have permits only to hunt on, say, BLM or Forest Service land. As this is my private property, so long as they stay on it, and don't go wandering off, they're safe. Or at least safe from humans; mountain lion has been seen nearby, and hikers I'd encountered up the South Fork road said they'd come across a fresh "fawn" kill on the trail to Silver Peak, which I'd done 2 days before. And since they sensed the mountain lion was still around -- and so was the bewildered mom -- they scurried back down the trail lickety-split. As the old adage says, Nature Red In Tooth And Claw... 

Though the reports indicated rain,, the morning was clear with just a few clouds, and though the rain didn't hit the ground, it was raining up in the sky -- 

Virga -- rain that evaporates before hitting the ground. And, as some clouds can look like animals or people, these look like jellyfish -- at least to me. Floating jellyfish or not, they're a beautiful sight. 

The rest of the day was -- unexciting. I was waiting for the rain which never came, but it was windy and "threatening" rain, which never delivered except for a brief period. During a sunny spell I went out to do some weeding, digging out the beginnings of Russian thistle (think tumbleweeds) in near the well house. Speaking of which, the outside is made of wood strips which is places are starting to curl up or crack from the constant sun, and the nails are getting pulled up, so I hammered the nails back in, and hoped the well house structure would last another year or two. With the existing well, pump and soft water system -- along with the electrical system -- it would be a pain to replace it, so I just may replace the boards when they start to rot. Besides, you never know what creepy-crawlies may be in those walls, and I'd rather not disturb them just so long as I don't see them...

No sunset, no rain -- and another day is done. 

UPDATE: I always try to give out accurate information in my posts. I'd mentioned that I believed one of the fawns was an "adoptee" as does usually only have 2 at a time. A friend of mine corrected me, saying that does do not "adopt" an orphan and that the doe has only 2 teats, meaning that if there are 3 fawns one becomes the "runt" of the litter and is smaller than the others, and also might be somewhat "rejected" by the rest of the family. So naturally, in the interests of accuracy, I checked online to see what the "truth" was. (How we ever survived with just a library to get info I do not know.) So I read in many online forums that does in fact have 4 teats, not 2, and can have from 1 up to 3 fawns at a time. So with that number of teats there is, theoretically at least, no reason for there to be a "runt" of the litter, as there are, er, "plenty of teats to go around". AND there are been documented, and videotaped, instances where does have taken in orphaned fawns. So who knows what "my" Coues deer family's story is -- but what I have related may be one possibility.