On my regular garden foray yesterday, I discovered this.......
Someone has been nibbling on my kale and chard!
I'm wondering if those tracks belong to the Orphan Fawn, as they are quite small, and are the only prints I see. Earlier this fall, I'd sunk a pot of cat nip into the end of the field garden to overwinter until I can figure out where to plant it permanently. (I grew the seeds in a pot for making cat nip toys for friend's cats and for tea.) Beside it was a similar pair of prints and the plant has been nibbled! I wonder how cat nip affects deer?? We know how it makes most cats behave!! Now that the bush is bare, the deer are looking for anything green to eat, to supplement bud browsing.
The snow that fell earlier is gone now, but while here, I had to clear the panels to get what light there was, absorbed. The panels do charge the batteries, even on overcast days.
There is just one so far, but I expect more, as they travel in flocks. Last fall, we had a big flock of 20 to 50. They come wheeling in to land in unison, like a flurry of large, white snowflakes, and stay in unison, even while foraging, where they travel together across the ground, pecking bits of things as they go. They are pretty skittish, and take off simultaneously, circling around in a big circle, their wings flashing whitely. When they are on the ground, foraging, they blend in very well, and are hard to see. They drift through here in the spring and fall, going to and from the tundra. Their habit of sticking together is probably a mechanism to confuse aerial predators, which are what would be an issue up in that open space.
I guess if you see a deer acting crazy you'll know what happened :D
ReplyDeleteMornin' Martha: LOL. At dusk last night, I watched a doe and fawn graze across the lawn...
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