The front yard surprise

Yesterday morning, when walking Daru, I was surprised to find this fawn, Odocoileus virginianus, laying in the front yard near our driveway. (Our grass is about 4-5 inches high for a reference- yes it might need to be mowed =)!) I was more surprised that Daru didn't notice it when we walked by either time. After some reading, I learned that baby deer are almost odorless so Daru probably couldn't smell it even though she was 2 feet from it:

"When a suitable place of concealment is reached, the doe leaves her fawns and moves off perhaps 100 yards away. The fawns in their spotted coats are almost impossible to see and are almost odorless. The doe comes back five to eight times a day to nurse the young and then leaves again. She always remains somewhere in the area where she can see if danger approaches or can hear the little ones if they call to her. (http://www.bowhunting.net/NAspecies/whitetail3.htm)"

For more on white-tailed deer: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White-tailed_deer
For another cute picture of fawns from Rochester: http://rachelanddoug.blogspot.com/2006/08/oh-deer_01.html

The Law of Reflection

We talked about the law of reflection in science class today...angle of incidence equals angle of reflection.

When the turkey calls...

Meleagris gallopavo visits our backyard- and later gets trapped on the front porch and freaks out.