Spring headgear

A young buck was mowing the neighbour's lawn, not worrying about me, watering my flowers a few metres away. He even posed for a few photos.

He's still small, but look! He's growing antlers!

Front view. They're covered with velvet.

Still smaller than his ears. That will change, quickly.

And because I was watering my flowers, he didn't come over to eat them. Good of him.

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Un venadito macho estaba cortando el césped enfrente de la casa de mi vecino, sin importarle que yo estaba regando mis flores a unos pocos metros de distancia. Hasta me permitió sacarle fotos.

    1. Un jovencito, nada más. Pero, ¡mira! ¡Ya tiene astas!

    2. Todavía están cubiertas con terciopelo.

    3. Y las orejas son más grandes que las astas por ahora. Eso cambiará pronto.

Y porque yo estaba regando las flores, no se atrevió a venir a comérselas. Portándose bién, mientras había testigos.

Those eyelashes!

 A deer at my rainy window.

Scratching her back between nibbles at my new hydrangea buds.

Look at those eyelashes!

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Una venadita vino a comer los botones nuevos en la hortensia bajo mi ventana. ¡Mira esas pestañas!

1. Se detuvo un segundo para rascarse la espalda.
2. ¡Pestañas!

Teeth and squiggles and wandering bones

At the end of a short trail heading off into the forest, an animal trail although humans had been there, too, I found the better part of a deer skeleton. Clean bones, with no flesh left on them. I took a couple of photos.

Deer skull, as found.

Pelvis, spine, some of the ribs, some leg bones.

At home, I started to wonder about the age of the deer, and looked for the teeth, then realized that there was no lower jawbone in my photos; and all the instructions about aging a deer skeleton depend on that lower jawbone. So I went back and poked around in the bush. No lower jaw. Some animal must have carried it off to eat in privacy. I brought home the skull to examine the upper teeth more closely, anyhow.

Three molars.

The molars, at first glance, look like two rows of 6 teeth each; look at that top photo. But there are only three, each with three roots, here on the upper jaw. On the lower jaw, they have two.

Molars, side view.

The upper jaw has no incisors, the front teeth used for biting; instead they have a tough gum pad which connects to the incisors which they do have on the lower jaw, and they tear their food rather than bite through it. Watch a deer eat; they grab the leaves (of my hydrangea, for example) and yank their head sideways to tear off a mouthful.

And look at this: the sutures at the top of the skull, joining the skull bones with fibrous connective tissue, which allows the skull and the brain it protects to expand.

 Like fingerprints, they are unique for each individual, deer or human.

More sutures, at the back of the skull.

I love these; I keep seeing designs in those squiggly lines. Cartoon characters, cactus deserts, or the map of one of our local highways, maybe.

And I don't know how old the deer was.

UPDATE: It may have been 4 or 5 years old, according to a commenter on Field Naturalists of Vancouver Island.

The deer is probably around 4-5 years old according to teeth wear. ... The sutures on top of the skull are not heavily fused and are in a lazy pattern. The older the Ungulate gets the more interlocked and fused they become. (Rick Gander, FNVI)

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Al final de un senderito corto que entraba al bosque, un camino hecho por algún animal, aunque también lo han seguido una u otra persona,  encontré gran parte de un esqueleto de un venado. Eran huesos limpios; ya no tenían nada de carne. Saqué un par de fotos. 

    1. El cráneo, tal como lo encontré.

    2. El pelvis, la espina dorsal, algunas costillas, huesos largos de las patas.

En casa ya, se me ocurrió preguntar cual sería la edad de este venado, y busqué los dientes en las fotos. Pero la mandíbula inferior no aparecía, y todas las instrucciones sobre la identificación de la edad empezaban con; ver la mandíbula inferior. Regresé al sitio y la busqué entre las hierbas, pero no la hallé. Un animal se la habría llevado. Ni modo; me traje el cráneo a casa; podría por lo menos examinar esos dientes.

    3. Tres muelas.

Los molares, a primera vista, parece que consisten en dos hileras con 6 muelas en cada una; mira esa primera foto. Pero en realidad son unicamente tres, cada una de estas en la mandíbula superior  con tres raices. En la mandíbula inferior, tienen dos.

    4. Los molares, vistos horizontalmente, exhibiendo sus raices.

La mandíbula superior no contiene dientes incisivos, los dientes que se usan para cortar. En su lugar, tiene una capa gruesa y dura, la cual hace contacto con los incisivos de la mandíbula inferior. Esto les obliga a desgarrar las hierbas en vez de cortarlas. Observa un venado mientras come; agarra las hojas (como las de mi hortensia, por ejemplo) y tuerce la cabeza hacia un lado para arrancarlas.

Otra cosa. Mira estas suturas en la parte superior del cráneo. Estos juntan los huesos craneales con tejidos conjuntivos, lo que permite que crezcan estos huesos y el cerebro que protegen.

    5. Suturas del cráneo. Como las huellas dactilares, son únicas para cada individuo, sea venado o humano.

    6. Estas suturas están en la parte posterior del cráneo.

Me encantan estas. Y en ellas veo diseños interesantes; caricaturas (¿un perrito loco?), cactos en el desierto, o el mapa de una de nuestras carreteras.

Y no pude averiguar la edad del venado.

NUEVO: Puede haber tenido de 4 a 5 años, dice un experto en la página Facebook, Field Naturalists of Vancouver Island.

El  venado probablemente tiene de 4 a 5 años, basado en el desgastamiento de la dentadura. ... Las suturas del cráneo no se encuentran fuertemente cimentados y su diseño es flojo.  Entre más viejo el Ungulado, más entrelazadas y unidas se hacen. (Rick Gander, FNVI)

Things that Made me Happy in 2025, part II

I wander alone most of the time, these days. Except, that is, for those friends I meet on the trail, some human (and such a joy to find you out here under the trees!), and many others, the true owners of the forests and shores I'm privileged to visit.

Here are a few of those:

Raven, patrolling the Elk Falls parking lot. June.

Black bear, Buttle Lake, out for an afternoon stroll down the highway. Here he stopped to investigate something among the roadside weeds. July.

Sparrow, bringing home breakfast for the kiddies. Tyee Spit, July.

Chia, companion, midnight zoomer, keyboard stomper, brown bag destroyer. Always at the door to greet me when I come home.

Deer in snowy woods. This area, just south of Campbell River, always gets the deepest, fluffiest snow early in the season. February.

And new fawns, on my street, June.

Cute little green froggy. September, at the beaver pond, Hyw. 28.

Many not-so-good, bad, or really terrible bird photos make me happy, too. (Some make me laugh and I post them to the Worst Bird Facebook page.) This was just a speck in the distance on Roberts Lake. In my viewfinder, with the lens at maximum zoom, it was still a speck. Blowing up the photo revealed a loon, not diving, showing off his checkerboard back. August.

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Ando a solas casi siempre en estos dias. Bueno, eso es sin contar los amigos que encuentro en camino (¡y qué gusto verlos aquí bajo los árboles!) y muchos otros, los verdaderos dueños de los bosques y las aguas que tengo el privilegio de visitar.

Aquí hay unos de estos últimos:

1. Un cuervo grande, Corvus corax, vigilando el estacionamiento de Elk Falls. Junio.
2. Oso negro; caminaba por la carretera pasando Buttle Lake. Aquí se detuvo para investigar algo entre las hierbas. Julio.
3. Un gorrión, con el desayuno para sus polluelos.Tyee Spit, Julio.
4. Mi gatita, Chia; buena compañera, escandalosa a medianoche, reprogramadora de mi computadora de dia, destrozadora de bolsas de papel a cualquier hora. Siempre me recibe en la puerta cuando  regreso a casa.
5. Venado en el bosque lleno de nieve. El bosque por este rumbo, un poco al sur de Campbell River, siempre se llena de la nieve más profunda, más volátil al principio de la temporada. Febrero.
6.  Y nuevos venaditos en mi calle. Junio.
7. Una ranita verde cerca de la laguna de los castores, en la carretera 28. Septiembre.
8. Muchas fotos no tan buenas, o malas, o verdaderamente terribles también me hacen feliz. (Algunas me hacen reir y las subo a la página Facebook Worst Bird.) Vi un puntito negro en la distancia en el lago Roberts. Con la lente de la cámara a su zoom máximo, sigió siendo un puntito. Al ver la foto aumentada en casa, apareció este colimbo común, Gavia immer, que nadaba tranquilo, sin bucear, mostrando su diseño de manchas blancas y negras en forma de tablero. En agosto.

Baby, baby!

I've been away, gallivanting with family, but I couldn't hold this for later.

Doe and newborn fawns. One of our regular young visitors, with her own family now.

More later, in a day or two. Off in the morning for another adventure.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

He estado paseando con la familia, sin poder subir nada aquí, pero no pude guardarme esto:

Foto: una vendadita con sus dos cervatillos recién nacidos. La madre es una de los venados que me visitan casi a diario.

Subo más fotos en unos pocos dias.

Spotty

So tame, the deer are. They know they can trust us, on these quiet streets away from the highway. And we do keep such good eating in our gardens!

Fawn, checking me out from the side of the road. They lose their spots at 3 to 4 months old.

And here's the mother.

These are the Columbian Black-tailed Deer, Odocoileus hemionus ssp. columbianus. They are plentiful up and down the Pacific coast from southern BC to California. Fawns are born in May or June; this fawn, in mid-August, would be about ready to lose his spots and grow his winter coat.

Synchronized grooming.

I'll remember you, he says.

Later on, the fawn came alone to my garden and ate a whole row of beet tops, topping them off with bites from the last of the Transparent apples. Gourmet dining!

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Los venados que andan por aquí nos tienen mucha confianza. Saben bien que no les haremos daño, y que manejamos con cuidado, aquí lejos del tráfico en las carreteras. ¡Y cultivamos tan ricas verduras y frutas en nuestros jardines!

1. Un venadito me observa desde el borde de la calle. Pierden sus manchas cuando tienen 3 o 4 meses de edad. Los cervatillos nacen en mayo o junio, este, visto a mediados de agosto, estará casi listo para perder las manchas y vestirse de su abrigo de invierno.
2. La madre. Estos son los venados Cola-Negra Columbianos, Odocoileus hemionus ssp. columbianus. Son muy frecuentes a lo largo de la costa del Pacífico, desde el sur de esta isla hasta California.
3. Sincronización.
4. Fijándome en la memoria.

Más tarde, este venadito vino a solas a mi jardín y se comio toda una hilera de las hojas de betabel (remolacha), con mordidas de las manzanas Transparente como postre. ¡Gastronomía gourmet!

Deer at the window again

 About those deer at my window:

They showed up last July; two fawns and their mother. The fawns were still spotty, probably around 3 or 4 months old. I haven't seen them since, but I know they've been coming by, because they keep eating my nasturtium leaves, leaving the stems standing bare.

I happened to be near the window when the youngsters came by a couple of days ago. They've grown, but are still shorter than the mother was.

Watching me and my camera. The white spots are rain on my window.

Eating stonecrop that is spreading through the grass under the window.

(Yes, I know the grass needs mowing: it will stay that way until spring. With a load of snow on top, the extra grass will provide cover for ground-level beasties.)

The second deer, a male, crossed the road to check a yardful of flowers in pots. He's developed a nice set of antlers. He may be the brother to the one at my window, or, judging by the antlers, a companion, a full yearling.

Turning back to look at me, outside now.

Anybody home?

One more shot: caught just as the deer turned to leave, hiding most of the body behind my house plants on the windowsill. I kept the photo because it showed the hairs so well; my new lens is doing a good job. But then I noticed how thick that fur is. She will be well protected from the winter chill.

Fur coat on the tail end.

And they nipped off the leaves on my nasturtiums again.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Acerca de esos venados:

Me visitaron por primera vez en el mes de julio pasado, dos venaditos y su madre. Los chicos todavía llevaban sus manchas blancas; tendrían unos 3 o 4 meses de edad. Desde entonces no los he visto, pero sé que han vuelto, ya que siguen comiendo las hojas de mis capuchinas, dejando los tallos intactos.

Estuve cerca de la ventana cuando llegaron los dos jóvenes hace un par de dias. Ya crecieron, pero no alcanzan al tamaño de su mamá todavía.

1. Muy cerca, mirándome y a mi cámara. Las manchas blancas son gotas de lluvia en el vidrio de la ventana.
2. Está comiendo mis plantas suculentas Sedum sp. que se están mezclando con el césped bajo la ventana. (Y sí, sé que al césped le falta un buen corte, pero así se queda hasta la primavera. Bajo la capa de nieve, formará un refugio calientito para los animalitos que viven al nivel del suelo.)
3. El segundo venado, un macho, cruzó la calle para comerse unas de las flores en macetas allí. Salí a verle sin el vidrio en medio. Ya ha desarrollado una buena cornamenta. Puede ser el hermano de la primera, o tal vez un acompañante, ya pasado un año de edad, juzgando por el tamaño de los cuernos.
4. ¿Hay alguien en casa?
5. Otra foto final: ésta la saqué mientras la venadita daba la vuelta para irse, y quedó escondida tras mis plantas caseras, aparte de la cola. Guardé la foto porque mostraba tan bien los pelos individuales; la lente nueva hace buenas fotos. Pero luego miré otra vez y noté lo eficaz que será ese abrigo cuando soplan los vientos helados este invierno.

Y otra vez, se han comido las hojas de las capuchinas.

Watch the ears

I was bent down, looking at mushrooms on a log, when something made me look up. Not a sound, not movement; something, some nameless awareness of company. And there was a deer, just standing there a few metres away, watching me.

I'm the intruder here.

She stood there. I straightened up. She didn't move at first, then turned her head to get a better look at me. Listened. The only sound was the chatter of the river below us.

Watch her ears.

One ear for me, one for the trail.

We stood there for a long moment. She turned one ear away from me, then after a minute, picked her way gently, slowly among the logs and across the trail, stopping every few steps to look at me again. Then suddenly, she leapt and disappeared among the bushes on the river bank.

I heard nothing, not even her steps. But no sooner had she gone, than a woman came around the bend in the trail, where her ear had been pointing.

Two's company; three's a crowd.

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Estaba agachada mirando unos hongos en un tronco, cuando algo me hizo levantar los ojos. No era un sonido; no oi nada, ni hubo movimiento, solo una sensación indefinida de no estar sola. Y allí estaba una cierva, a unos pocos metros. No se movía; nada más se quedó mirándome. Yo me enderecé. Ella no se movió.

Después de un rato, volvió la cabeza para mirarme mejor, y luego regresó a la postura anterior, pero ahora con una oreja vuelta para atrás.

(Observa esas orejas.)

Y ahí nos quedamos por un tiempo. Luego siguió tranquilamente su camino entre los troncos, y cruzó el sendero. Lentamente, volviendo a mirarme entre paso y paso. Y de repente dió un salto y desapareció entre los arbustos a la orilla del rio.

Yo no había oido nada, ni siquiera sus pasos. Pero apenas se había ido, una mujer apareció a la vuelta en el sendero, hacia donde la ciervita había apuntado esa oreja.

Giving up on the falls

Elk Falls is a roaring, foaming waterfall, at the bottom of the Campbell River canyon. Not a high fall, as falls go; the free-falling, plunge section of the falls is only 89 feet (27 metres), but still, it's an impressive sight and sound from a platform on the opposite side of the river.

Top end of the falls. The gorge is too narrow, the platform too close to get a photo of the whole falls.

The view from this lower platform, going backwards, up-river:

Bare rock, once washed by the much wider river; now a major part of the flow has been re-directed to the turbines, to provide electrical power to a large part of Vancouver Island.

And moving the gaze up-river again:

Still waters, barely seeming to move.

From the suspension bridge above, the bottom of the falls is visible, although through high (over my head,) daunting chain-link fencing. I took photos of the fence, instead:

Shy jumping spider and top of fence.

First huckleberry of the year. I ate it afterwards; it was sweet, but not too sweet.

On the way back up, near the top of the canyon, the fence is less forbidding. With snooty robin, who disapproved of my presence on his trail.

And at the top, beside the parking lot, the fence is temporary. And protects a young deer from traffic.

Deer in the headlights

I took the highway north tonight, getting beyond the light pollution from the city and from industry along the coast, looking for the Northern Lights. Up near Keta Lake, I found them, almost invisible above the rain and fog: a hint of green, waxing and waning, sometimes a flash of red. Disappointing. Maybe another day.

But on the way, a deer browsing beside the road stood to watch me, caught in my high beams.

Worth the drive. 9:23 PM. Sunset was at 7:40.

At Keta Lake, I got out of the car to scan the sky, smelled rotten fish, and scrambled back inside. Could have been a bear, but more likely a raccoon. Or even an eagle. Or a vulture. It was too dark to see anything, even a couple of feet away. After a while, the scent faded, and I got out again. And this time, the mosquitoes found me. Worse than bears!

The perils of a wilderness wanderer.

Thistles and critters

A patch of thistles between the blackberry bushes (with burdock alongside; it was a prickly field!) was a-buzz with flying and crawling critters.

Skipper, and a syrphid fly. I think the skipper is Ochlodes sylvanoides, the Woodland Skipper, very common here in BC.

The bees were busy, but in a great hurry, never parking on a flower long enough for me to focus on it. A lot of work to be done; there are blackberries and flyaway thistle fluff to be made, and it all falls on the bees' shoulders, or at least their leg buckets.

More thistles, more critters.

Most thistles are edible, but grazing animals, such as the deer that was browsing in the blackberry patch, usually ignore them. The leaves are spiny, and those spines are sharp, where the blackberry leaves are mostly thornless.

The berry pickers

I was picking blackberries on the edges of an open field; black, juicy, and a wee bit tart; delicious! I hadn't brought a container, so I was eating as fast as I picked. I turned a corner, and met another blackberry eater.

Young deer, as surprised as I was.

Deciding I'm safe, she goes back to her meal.

I was eating berries; she was eating the leaves. Those canes have sharp spines, strong enough to tear my clothes. She doesn't seem to mind them on her back.

She was maybe a bit too tame; I'm safe, but not all people are. But she let me walk, slowly, up to a couple of metres from her. Then she turned away from the berry bushes and faced me.

"Who are you," she says, "and what do you want?"

I backed away slowly, and went back to the far side of the blackberry patch.

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.)

Decisions, decisions!

My grandkids were visiting, and we were coming home from exploring Woodhus Creek, when we met a deer family, two adults and a fawn, beside the road. The kids got out of the car and walked over, and to my surprise, the deer looked at them and went on browsing.

I stayed in the car, taking photos through the windshield.

The larger adult, looking well fed, chewing a mouthful of greens.

The fawn, and, I think, the mother. She's skinny, as if she's been nursing her baby.

Mother and fawn

The girls were sensible enough to keep quiet, move gently, and not approach too closely. The fat adult moved back into the bush, came up against a chain-link fence (visible in the top photo), and returned to go on with his meal. But the mother was nervous, and after a few minutes, she crossed the road, where the bush went on, without barriers, all the way down to the river.

She waited. The fawn tiptoed timidly out onto the road, and almost all the way across, before he started to wonder if this was the right thing. Here he was, halfway between one adult and the other, and not sure where to go. Neither of the adults moved to call him.
We humans all held our breath.

Which way? Which way?

(Aren't those the cutest little toes?)

Thinking it over

Eventually, the fawn went back to his starting point. The mother dithered, debating her next move. Back across the road to her fawn? Or stay there, on the path to safety, calling her baby to come on? She couldn't make up her mind, and we were not helping, just being there.

We loaded the kids back into the car and drove on.

Luckily, no other car came down the road, hurrying around the blind corner ahead, while the youngster stood, doubting, on the centre line.

We were here.