Street lessons

Deer, like pigeons, spiders, and rats (this last, unfortunately), somehow adjust readily to urban environments. I've seen them in downtown Greater Vancouver, tripping unconcernedly across the street. Here in Campbell River, they browse in vacant lots, in neighbourhood gardens, in the weeds beside the highway.

Yesterday, coming out of a store, I met a doe and her fawn beside the parking lot.

The youngster still has his spots. And what big ears they have!*

This street is one of the busiest; there's always traffic. Just across the street, the machines are busy, tearing up the soil, preparing to build something large. A side alley leads to a parking lot, crammed with workers' cars.

And Ma Deer decided to take her youngster over there, away from me and my car.

Fences everywhere; no escape but by the street.

She stood on the side of the street, watching me, watching her fawn, watching the traffic, until it was safe to cross. Her fawn followed.

"Okay! Coast is clear; come on, kid!"

They crossed the road quickly, went towards the parking lot, then veered into a bit of bush, the fawn a few steps behind his mother all the way.

It was like watching a human mother teaching her kid to cross a street; good parenting, Ma Deer!

A store employee, going off work a minute later, told me that there's been a small family of deer among those trees across the street. She was glad the fawn is still fine.

*(I erased a couple of distracting cars out of that first photo.)