The Fawn on the Lawn

At the end of May 1999, not long after we saw the Mets’ slugger Mo Vaughn hit a prodigious home run at Shea Stadium, I came out of my house to take a walk and found a newborn fawn curled up at the end of my front lawn. There was nothing between it and the street but the curb stones.

I thought it was dead. I prodded it with my foot and it stirred. I went back into the house to tell my husband.

I was between jobs at that point, so I was at home and had the time to focus on this unexpected delivery. Throughout the day I watched adults, kids and dogs walk by. No one noticed the fawn. However, its mother must’ve noticed because the next day the fawn had been moved to the long grass in our backyard near the flood wall, an area so secluded I almost missed it, too. The lawn had not been mowed in some time because our mower was being repaired.

We christened our visitor Mo Fawn.

I mention all this because for the first time since then I was puttering around the backyard the other morning and found another sleeping newborn fawn under our apple tree. Once again my reaction was to make sure it was alive. Unlike last time, I got my camera and took a picture of this cute, little baby.

Mo Fawn II, June 2013

It had been placed well. Once again, the grass was longer than it should’ve been (the mower we use now was not at fault; MH had wanted the grass long during a heatwave and had not gotten around to mowing once the wave ended) and the tree shaded Mo Fawn II as it slept.

I had learned from my brother-in-law the naturalist the last time that newborn fawns have no scent, which explains why dogs ignored it. However, people could still see it. This second time I was concerned kids from next door or cutting through the yard to retrieve an errant ball would touch it. If that happened its mother would abandon it.

MH mowed the lawn but left Mo within a wide swath of long grass.

I was sure its mother would take it away once it saw the grass had been cut. I was wrong.

The last time, after Mo had been there a couple of days, a doe and another fawn had come into our yard. I thought it was Mo’s mother. She left with her fawn. Mo, left behind, started the most piteous bleating, which tore at my heart and had me searching through my tears for an animal control number since I was sure it had been abandoned.

Just in time, MH called me to the back porch. There was the biggest doe I’ve ever seen feeding Mo. I almost fainted from relief. Once he was fed she led him away, as nature intended.

However, when it comes to deer, this is not a given. This is the New Jersey suburbs, where the leading cause of deer death is not human hunting or animal predators but collisions with cars. Every year there are many young animals that lose their mothers in accidents. There is a reason why hunting season is in November and not May into June when does give birth.

So I had an uneasy feeling when I awoke to find Mo II still with us. Had Mom been hit by a car? Did someone decide to go into the woods with a bow and arrow and poach a deer? Did someone come into my yard, bother the fawn and leave a scent, thus assuring abandonment?

Hope for the best, MH said, as he usually does. Wait another day before calling someone.

As it happened, Mo II was gone by day’s end. I work at home now, and when I came downstairs on a break I looked out the kitchen window at a large doe cleaning the fawn. It is the only time I’ll ever be happy to see a deer in my backyard.

She heard me come out on the porch and jumped over the low flood wall. She stayed in the bushes close by. I went back into the house and watched from the kitchen.

Soon she came out of the bushes and walked along the flood wall. Mo followed her from the other side. When she got him to an area where it wasn’t as high, he tried to jump the wall and couldn’t. He got very agitated and tried again. This time he made it. Mom turned and carefully led Mo to the next street and then across, up through the yards and into one last bit of woods not cut down for a street or housing development in my town.

The fawn on the lawn was gone, for now. I’ve no doubt once Mo is weaned he will be eating shrubbery and then he won’t be such a cute little thing to me.

A few things to remember from this episode. The more houses we build, the more we shrink the available woods that are home to deer, birds and other wild creatures, and the greater the chance these wild creatures come into contact with us. There are people who passionately want to ban all deer hunts, even tho’ the deer population has increased since our first encounter with Mo Fawn because we‘ve created such wonderful conditions for them.

The usual way I see deer in the backyard.

I'm not going to comment on hunting but I will say
I’ve learned over the course of two decades that if a deer is in the yard, see which way it is headed and then get behind it to encourage it off the property. If you make the deer run the way it came you have wasted your time because once you go inside it will only come back and head where it planned to go anyway.

I have learned why many of my neighbors don’t grow flowers or certain other plants -- there are no “deer-resistant” plants. Strong scents may deter them but I’ve found a hungry deer will nibble just about anything, which could kill your plant if enough of them try it..

I’ve also learned deer netting, ugly and cumbersome as it is, is the only real deterrent. But even here if a deer finds a weakness, something not fastened tight enough or too tight, it will strike. I’ve come outside to find netting slit down the middle because it had been strung too tight, and the plants behind eaten within an inch of their lives. One of those doing the eating might’ve been the original Mo Fawn. I’ve learned and adjusted.

All animals have it tough in this human world. MH and I did our small part. I don’t begrudge Mo II his life, even tho’ I will be sure to chase him, his mother and any other deer off my property the next time.

The Secret Life of a Suburban Backyard (with two updates)

Who knows what goes on behind the picket fence?

The typical suburban backyard is not very interesting. The large lawn is mowed down to a small height. The weeds are either dug up by hand or bombed with chemicals. The shrubs are not particularly showy and designed to require little in the way of maintenance. Those with a fenced-in yard put the dogs out in good weather. Humans are only out there when they use the grill or perhaps play with toddlers.

Fawn 1, May 25, 2019 (Margo D. Beller)

Perhaps I am stereotyping my neighborhood but that's how my neighbors' properties appear to me. I doubt any of them know what the birds are doing in their trees and shrubs or the critters on their lawn unless they notice browsing damage or the waste left behind.

This morning I was distracted by three wildlife dramas I noticed taking place in my suburban backyard. One was quickly resolved, one is ongoing, one I don't know how it will end.

Drama One: Twin Problems

The first involved deer, this time twin fawns about a day old.

While most people think of Memorial Day as the unofficial start of summer, I think of the period as birthing time for does. I have found day-old fawns on the property every few years and I am usually on MH to get out and mow the grass before it can be turned into a nursery. MH likes to leave the grass longish so it will protect itself from the sun's heat.

But since I was the one who mowed the backyard only a week ago, I can't blame him for what happened when the rains made the grass grow back quicker than I expected.

I put out a bird feeder this morning and noticed grass matted down from a deer that used it as a B&B. I walked to the back door and listened to the many birds - robins, catbirds, cardinals, a few types of warblers. My reverie was broken when a big doe bounded across the yard into my ornamental grass garden, knocking over plants. I noticed the size and deep in my brain must've remembered another big doe. I shooed her away.

About 15 minutes later, I saw two fawns under the dogwood. I remembered the other big doe - the one who came to nurse a crying fawn that had been left in our long grass several years ago.

Fawn 2 (Margo D. Beller)

I don't know why but I went out to get the fawns to move off my lawn to someplace less open to the street. On their spindly legs they slowly went to a border shrub and hunkered down. I went inside. Later I went out and there they were again. One soon bedded down under the dogwood, invisible unless you knew where to look. The other, however, was far more active and started heading toward the street.

I have protection against grown deer and smaller pests like squirrels and rabbits around some of my garden beds but I didn't want this little thing to get caught so I went out to shoo it back to its sibling. To my shock it started after me thinking I was its mother! I ran back to the porch.

Later, I went into the front yard to make sure this fawn hadn't gotten caught in the netting. There was Mom looking at me from the lawn across the street. I was not surprised to see her about 15 minutes later leading off a fawn, preumably the one that had been under the dogwood. Since I didn't see the other one anywhere, I am hoping she took care of that one, too.

Drama over, at least for now. Soon the fawns will grow and, like any curious child, will come to explore. Any plants not covered with netting will be sampled, including supposedly "deer-resistant" plants. I've had many bites taken out of such plants and that's why this year what I can move are behind some kind of barrier.

(Update: I later found one of the fawns under my apple tree. I left it alone and went out for the afternoon with MH. I don't know which fawn it was but it was gone when we returned. I know the whole family will return after dark and bed down in the lawn until we can mow it.)

Drama Two: An Alien

For some time now I've been hearing the sound of begging from a forsythia shrub. Today, while repairing damage done by the big doe mentioned above, I saw the cardinal pair at my flood wall followed by a begging bird nearly as big as they.

Cowbirds struck again.

I don't like cowbirds, as I've often stated, because the female lays her egg in another bird's nest. This egg frequently hatches first and then destroys the competition. So the parents feed this alien until it gets big enough to feed itself, at which point it somehow knows to find other cowbirds and start the cycle all over again.

Male cardinal (Margo D. Beller)

By now I usually take in the feeders but this year I've been slowly decreasing the number, in part to allow the parent cardinals to find seed to give them the strength to find insects to feed this voracious youngster (cowbirds don't eat seeds). First the suet was removed and put into the freezer. Then the caged tube feeder came in. Now the house feeder remains. Few birds are coming to it when insects are so plentiful.

This cardinal pair, however, seems so dependent on the seed I provide the male is frequently on the pole as I open the back door to put out the feeder. The male feeds on one side, the female the other. Then the chick starts begging and one has to fly off to attend to it. There are no babysitters to help out this family.

Drama Three: Evict or No? 

We recently returned from a week away to find a strange situation at the house wren box I put out every year. The male, which had been singing up a storm in late April into early May, appeared to be gone. A bird I presumed to be the female would make a soft scolding call from a nearby hedge, fly to the box, go in and stay put for a long while. I wondered, is there a nest going and are the eggs hatched or did something happen?

The other day I saw the bird leave the box for a bush. I didn't see it come back.

Today, for the first time in a long time, a male house wren was singing around the backyard. It flew into the apple tree and around the box. It came to the opening and looked but did not go in. Significantly, nothing flew out to chase him off and there was no cheeping. The male wren flew to several places in the yard, singing. It came back to the box and again looked in without entering. Now, it is gone and I don't know if it will return.

My quandary - Should I empty the box so another wren pair can start over? Or, as MH said as I fussed about the twin fawns, will nature take its course?

House wren from another year (Margo D. Beller)

Several years ago, a chickadee took over the box before a house wren could find it. I came up my driveway one evening to find what looked like a squirrel tail streaming from the box opening. It was the chickadee's nest of fur. It had been pulled out by a wren, which soon filled the box with its stick nest.

But if there is already a stick nest in the box (filled with dead eggs or, worse, a dead bird), the wren isn't going to go to the trouble of pulling it out and starting over. It will just find another sheltered place. If I want another pair to use the box this year, I'll have to empty it.

For now, I'm leaving the box alone to see what happens. I'll let you know what develops next in this suburban wildlife drama.

(Update: I took in the feeder for the night and walked over to the box. An adult wren quickly flew out and scolded me. I apologized and went back into the house. So the box isn't empty, at least for today. But what will happen tomorrow?)

The Further Adventures of a Suburban Backyard

The house wren sang incessantly starting at dawn. I did not mind the wake-up call. Considering I thought the nest box was abandoned, this is music to my ears.

Things happen so fast in my backyard that I must restrain myself from writing every day because I am sure to be proven wrong. Such is the case after last week's post when I needed to update on the fawns being led off the lawn by their mother. I am now sure the one that appeared under the apple tree after the doe had led off one of her twins was Fawn 1, the one that started to follow me thinking I was its mother. I didn't know where it had gotten to once I got on the porch. It must've remembered Mom's instructions to lie down under a tree surrounded by high grass and wait for her.

Wren nest box (Margo D. Beller)

Neither fawns nor doe have been seen since and MH was able to mow the grass over several days this week when the rains held off.

But there were other dramas in my backyard that literally changed by the day.

The late afternoon of Memorial Day - a sunny, clear and windless day - I came out to get the feeder and found the female cardinal on the ground, her head smashed from hitting the side of the screened porch. The flies were already doing their own feeding when I shoveled up the body and deposited it under a shrub on the other side of my flood wall, the usual place where I place any dead birds or animals I find. (They decompose very quickly.)

Cardinals mate for life, and it was sad to see the male cardinal coming to the feeder as usual and not seeing its mate. However, I was sure that would change and two days later I was not surprised to see an adult female started coming to the feeder with the male. What did surprise me, however, was the begging young that appeared on the floodwall: not a cowbird, as I'd thought, but a juvenile cardinal after all. Like the adult, this bird was brownish (to better blend in) and had a small crest and red tail but its bill was gray rather than red. That will change as the bird matures, as will its coloring if this is a male.

While it is easy to tell the red cardinal male from the browner female, the same can't be said about house wrens.

Female cardinal from another year (Margo D. Beller)

Last week, I was unsure if I was going to have to clear an abandoned nest from the box I hang every year in the apple tree. I had seen one individual that would softly "scold" and then fly into the box. I presumed that was a female. I wondered how she would survive as a single parent, especially if she was sitting on eggs. There had been a singing male at the box a week ago but he turned out to be a one-day wonder.

A few days later another male started singing and this one was more persistent. It sang all around the box, sat just outside the opening, even stuck its head in. It sang for most of the day and at one point I saw it and the female flying around the yard. The singing has continued and today (Sunday) I see twigs sticking through the opening of the box, a sign the nest has been enlarged. If there were dead eggs from her first mate, they've likely been removed.

All this activity has me wondering about many things.

How does a mother deer communicate with its young to tell it to stay in a particular area until she comes back?

How did the male cardinal advertise his availability to another adult female after losing his mate?

Why did the female house wren accept this particular male rather than the earlier one (presuming this wasn't the earlier one returning)?

Some things I can infer. Instinct plays a heavy role. The fawn that followed me saw me as a big creature like its mother. Once the real mother showed up, the fawn followed her off my property.

The female cardinal accepted the young cardinal even tho' it was not hers because instinct tells her to do so. Besides, this pair might have their own brood once the youngster can feed itself.

Blossoming apple tree with nest box (Margo D. Beller)

The female house wren knew it would need a partner, even one that only lasts one season, if she was to lay eggs, brood them into hatching and raise them so they could fledge and take care of themselves. Unlike other birds where the male's responsibility ends at conception, male house wrens help feed and protect the young, usually three or four to a brood. So she needed a new mate.

Now I await the sound of peeping wren young. I hope the birds are hatched, brooded and fledged before the annual summer race between me and the squirrels to harvest the apples now quickly growing around the nest box.

Summertime

 In summer, the song sings itself.

-- William Carlos Williams

Since I last wrote, we've had a roller-coaster month of May. There were days of rain so heavy it flooded my favorite walking trail. There were days that were much colder than usual, including one when I needed to protect my plants from possible frost. Then it turned hot and very, very dry. My husband and I did some traveling. I was downsized out of a job. Many of my early plants bloomed and faded, only to be replaced by others including the rhododendron, the irises and the peony. I accomplished several big garden projects - including weeding, creating a border trench, and removing and replacing deer netting and fencing - to my physical detriment. The lawn grass became very long but it was cut before any pregnant deer would want to drop a fawn on the lawn, which has happened in the past around now.

Rhododendron (Margo D. Beller)

And spring migration came to an end.

It is always with sadness that I acknowledge it's over. I think of what birds I found and what I didn't find. In my part of New Jersey the northerly winds in late April into early May seemed to have kept down the number of migrants passing through. The radar I looked at showed the birds flying north, bypassing most of my state, taking the path of least resistance. When we visited family in New Hampshire and stayed at a motel by Lake Sunapee it was a pleasure to sit on the screened deck at dawn and listen to the birds I had missed in my area. Except for our annual trip to Old Mine Road to listen for the birds that breed in the high terrain of the northwestern part of New Jersey, the only birds I have found lately are local breeders.

When it finally became warm enough I planted my pepper seedlings and moved the house plants to the enclosed back porch. In the backyard I went from two seed feeders and one suet feeder to one seed feeder and the hummingbird feeder. But there were nights it got cold and one when it got very cold, and that night I covered the pots and the peony, which had flower buds about to open. 

Peony, when the buds opened (Margo D. Beller)

Now, on Memorial Day, the so-called start of summer, it is hot. Yesterday I took in the last seed feeder and washed it out. Until then it had been drawing pairs of white-breasted nuthatch, cardinal, jay, goldfinch, house finch and song sparrow, the last one an unusual feeder bird for my yard. Now, the yard is quiet except for resident birds including the catbird. The birds should be either sitting on eggs or ready to do so.

That brings me to the annual saga of the yard house wren.

Every year the story is different. This year I hung the nest box in a different area of the dogwood tree than last year. In the past it only took a few days for a bird to come. But with this year's winds it took several weeks for a house wren to even show up in the yard, much less investigate the box. Early in May, just before we went on vacation, I saw a wren with a stick in its mouth go into the box. If it was a male, it was "dressing" the potential nest site to show its mate. Its mate would decide if she liked the location. If she did, she would bring in more sticks to create the nest. So I don't know if the wren was a male or female because they look alike.

My favorite walking path under water after
two days of very heavy rain. It has
since dried. (Margo D. Beller)

Fast-forward 10 days. I returned to work only to learn I and a number of others were out of a job. I spent time on the porch. What I saw from there were two house wrens actively shuttling back and forth with food to the box. According to the Cornell Ornithology Lab, incubation is nine to 16 days and the nesting period is 15 to 17 days. Maybe I had misjudged when the nesting period began?

Then, something happened.

We had a few cold mornings, including that very cold morning I mentioned when I had to protect my plants. The shuttling stopped. I didn't see much of the wrens. Recently, as I listened to the male singing from a nearby bush, the female came out of the nest box. But there was no active shuttling. She would return with food and go back inside. She would not come out again for a long time. 

I have no camera in the box so I can only guess at what is happening. 

Scenario 1: The young they had been actively feeding got big enough to fly, left the nest and the pair started a second brood.

Scenario 2: Something killed the young - the cold, a predator - and the pair immediately started a new brood.

Scenario 3: This is an entirely different pair of house wrens.

Wren box in its 2023 location
(Margo D. Beller)

In all the time I've put out a nest box I have never had a pair of wrens have one brood, raise the young, get them to leave the nest and hunt for themselves, and then the pair start a second brood. There would not have been enough time for that process, or for an entirely new pair of wrens to have found the box and lay eggs.

I lean toward scenario 2. Most likely the young had grown too big for the female to get inside the box and sit on them when the temperature dropped to the low 30s and so they died of the cold. Less likely is a predator getting to the young. One of the advantages the nest box provides is the small opening - too small for a cowbird to drop in an egg or admit a predator any larger than an extremely small snake. 

However, it would not have deterred disease from entering and sickening the young birds fatally. That's another possiblity.

At present I go outside in the morning when it is cool. I hear the male wren singing his territorial song. The female appears with food and goes into the box. After a while, when the male sings, perhaps telling her it is safe to do so because he is nearby, she will leave the box to hunt and then fly back and enter the box. The male stays in the area.

Perhaps in a week the pair will be shuttling to and from the box to feed young. This summer I'll have more time to watch for it. 

Backyard Nursery

The day after my last post, the house wrens fledged. I was working in my office and through the open window I heard one of the wren parents doing its scolding call from the tall arborvitae by the front door. I went downstairs, out the back door and around the house. I could see the bird moving around as it called. When I headed to the back door I could hear the young calling from the box or the shrubs across the way. 

Now-empty nest (Margo D. Beller)

I'm no expert but I am thinking the parent was telling the young if they wanted to get fed they'd better fly out and follow him or her. And they did. Later that day I went out the front door and heard the wrens in the border hedge between my neighbor and me. One day after that, silence. They had left.

As usual, I was saddened by the silence. However, the adult house wrens had done what they were supposed to do: find a mate, find a nest site, build the nest, mate, lay eggs, sit on eggs and then feed the young when they hatch. When the young get big enough, encourage them to start flying and hunting on their own. Then, when the time is right, leave for the winter grounds until next spring.

My yard is not completely silent, however, There have been noisy bird families flying around for weeks now.

Robins, Suffolk County, NY (Margo D. Beller)

The young robins are as big as their parents, their red breasts speckled for camouflage. They are hunting insects in the lawns, every so often running over to Mom or Dad for a quick worm. Families of grackles and starlings dig into the lawn, too. Raucous titmice young are calling as they follow their parents in the treetops. Families of blue jays are scouring the apple tree for insects, a little harder for them with the apples gone. A family of cardinals, the young looking like their mother for now but with black bills, hunt in the trees, as does a family of flickers.

In the hot July air, male goldfinches are doing their swooping flight to impress the females. Goldfinches nest later than other birds because they depend on seeds to feed their young, and it takes a while for plants to go to seed.

Fawn on the lawn, from several years ago.
(Margo D. Beller)

And there are other young. I did not have a repeat of what happened in 2013 but the other day a doe ran through my yard followed by her two speckled fawns prancing like colts. They are lovely to watch, as long as they are leaving my property so they can't nibble on my plants. (A doe with young is a lot more skittish and ready to run if I confront them than when a doe is alone.)

And to bring the story full circle, a few days ago I was on the porch when a house wren appeared at the water dish, dipped its bill and then flew to the dogwood tree. As I watched it checked out the nest box inside and out. Then it flew to a shrub.

You'll recall it was a house wren that came to the water dish back in June that spurred me to put up the nest box, and then I waited for what seemed like years for a pair to come and use it, the pair whose young just fledged.

Was this recent bird one of those wrens coming back to the old homestead? One of the young? Or was it a completely different wren looking for a suitable place to start a second brood? I don't know. It has not returned but the box will remain out for the rest of the summer, just in case.  

Nesting

The other day I chased some deer off my property, a common activity now that the shrubbery is all leafed out and the grass grows long between mowings. 

House wren, from last year.

As the white-tails ran off into Greystone across the street, one of my neighbors came out of his house to chat. He pointed out to me something highly unusual - a duck on a nest in his yard.

I didn't see it at first because the duck, a mallard, was perfectly camoflaged with her speckled back and dull appearance. She had her bill tucked in and was within a thick, fenced-in stand of irises in a small area under a large shade tree. My neighbor told me his wife had accidentally scared up Mother Duck - which is how she found the nest - and there were 11 eggs.

My neighbor and his wife are being protective of the duck nest, as I would be, and I can only hope the ducklings will be able to safely follow their mother off the nest, through the backyards, into Greystone - my neighbors' backyard abuts the edge of the property - and into Thompson Brook where they can grow.

At this time of year there are already birds on nests in New Jersey. Were I still working in Englewood Cliffs I'd have seen redtails Harold and Maud feeding young by now on the nest I discovered. Same with the robin nest I found in the courtyard of my former office building.

Birds are not alone. I always associate Memorial Day weekend with the one year a doe decided to drop a fawn on the end of my lawn, out in the open, right at the curb. When I saw it all curled up I thought it was dead. It was not. I worried that someone's dog would get at it so I did what I've always done at such times - I called my brother-in-law in NH, the teaching naturalist.

Newborn fawns have no smell, he told me, so as far as a dog would be concerned, it would just be part of the scenery.

That wouldn't apply to humans, however, and Mother Doe must've known this because the next day the fawn was off the curb and in the long grass behind my house near the flood wall. Our mower was still in the shop and the backyard looked like a meadow. The fawn stayed there a day or two before its mother led it someplace else. That was the first and, so far, last time.

I've also found a rabbit nest when I was clearing leaves from around a shrub at the side of the house. I quickly put the leaves back on it and then checked with my brother-in-law. He said that as long as I hadn't touched the young they'd be OK.

I am sure if I wanted to do so I would find a lot of nests in the shrubs and in the weeds at the borders of my backyard. Some of my other neighbors whose backyards border Greystone have seen skunk, racoon and fox families, and I was once awakened in the wee hours of a mid-May morning by a surreal sound that turned out to be mob of owlettes - likely great horned owl at that time of year - begging their mother for food. When I came outside in a futile attempt to look for them, Mother Owl silently led them away, their calls receding.

House wren nest box

Cardinals, catbirds and robins are more likely nesters in my yard, as are sparrows and house finches, with more birds such as woodpeckers and chickadees in holes in the trees. 

You probably have nests, too. If you find them please leave them alone and do not move them to what you think is a safer or more convenient location. The birds usually know what they are doing and if you move the nests you are dooming the young.

There is one nest in my yard that I can easily see - the box I hang from my apple tree for the house wrens. Every year at least one pair usually makes a nest and raise young in that box. This year, however, like everything else - roses blooming in April, certain migrant birds arriving weeks early, summer weather in winter - something is off and the wrens have not nested in the box.

That doesn't mean they haven't found my backyard, however. For the last few mornings, at first light, a house wren has been singing vigorously, proclaiming to the world this is his territory and he's protecting it. He's more reliable than my alarm clock!

Once in a while, if I'm out on the porch at the right time, I've seen a second wren flying around the yard with him. So there must be a nest somewhere, perhaps in my big hedge.

I'm leaving them alone. Perhaps the next brood will be in the box where I can see them develop.

Oh, Deer!

My brother-in-law lives in a rural part of New Hampshire. When we visit in winter his feeders draw a number of birds. Winter can be harsh up there, climate change notwithstanding. Sometimes the feeders draw something unusual - common redpolls or a flock of wild turkeys, for instance.

(Margo D. Beller)

Recently he announced the feeders had drawn something really unusual, at least to his yard - deer.

Welcome to my world.

In the past, hunting or natural predators have been very efficient in keeping down the deer population in his area. But now there are more homes being built on his road, and those neat parcels of lawn are very enticing for deer. Hunting season is apparently no longer enough up there.

All this, including hunting in restricted areas, has been going on in my suburban New Jersey neighborhood for decades. I've learned the hard way what happens when you grow plants that are not only attractive to you but to wildlife.

First it was the rabbits that nibbled at the asters. I put in a small fence that discouraged them. But it did nothing to stop the deer eating the asters or the euonymous shrubs or the lilies or the sedums. So I put in metal fence posts and hung deer netting. The fence posts would not stay in the ground so eventually they were replaced by thin, plastic-coated metal posts I could more easily hammer in, and on which I tied the netting. 

Protecting the evergreen euonymous
(Margo D. Beller)

Then I learned a hungry deer that was desperate enough would grab the netting with its teeth or use the strength of its hoof to rip a big hole. At first I used burlap to cover the netting on two front plots in winter, but the flapping and tearing caused by the wind had a neighbor complaining. Now I double a piece of netting to make it that much thicker, and I cut back the evergreen euonymous plants as winter approaches to make them harder to reach.

Like my brother-in-law I learned a deer will knock feeders around and eat the spilled seeds. One morning I saw an 8-point buck eating from the house feeder. Not wanting to be gored I banged on the enclosed porch's glass. It looked at me and ambled away. Another reason to take in the feeders at night. (I'd been taking the feeders in at night ever since the first bear attack, except when we've had heavy snow.) 

I learned a fawn could get behind the netting from around the corner if I didn't block the space with folded metal fencing. I learned there are plants deer are less likely to eat, though a hungry deer will always take a bite out of something (such as a canna leaf or a hot pepper) and then learn not to eat it again. (Of course, if enough deer take a bite, you have a dead plant.) 

(Margo D. Beller)

If I had known about deer over 25 years ago when I put in the plants what I have since learned, my garden would look very different. No azaleas and more daffodils, for instance. More ornamental grasses, fewer sedum. 

With Spring coming on I am already dreading the annual hassle of pulling the netting down so I can position myself as close as possible and then lean over the net to remove leaves or stray locust pods and get the beds ready for the season. Every few years I have to pull out the posts and replace the netting. (Last year I did this with the two front beds in a marathon session. Once netting comes down it can't be left that way because of the deer threat.)

Backyard burlap protecting yew plants I learned are
particularly attractive to deer. The backyard
neighbor doesn't seem bothered by the burlap. (Margo D. Beller)

Every year I say to hell with it, I'm taking down all this damned fencing. Then a herd of two to eight deer passes through and I remember why I struggle with this damned fencing.

My brother-in-law doesn't have to worry about this in his rural Eden, at least not yet. For now he'll be taking the feeders in at night, until the bears come out of their dens and he stops feeding the birds for the season anyway. 

Living With Wildlife

I feel a responsibility to my backyard. I want it to be taken care of and protected.
--photographer Annie Liebowitz

When I was growing up in southern Brooklyn, I was aware of some birds - pigeons, sparrows, the occasional robin, cardinal or jay plus "seagulls" (I now know they were herring gulls) - and even less aware of other types of wildlife aside from squirrels and feral cats.

When I moved to the suburbs I learned otherwise. The longer I have been here the more troubled I become by how many different types of wildlife have been through my backyard. The more housing developments are built, the better the chance an animal you do not expect is going to be in the backyard.

Squirrel on caged feeder (Margo D. Beller)

Aside from squirrels, which I quickly learned will take over a feeder and keep the birds from the seed unless I put some sort of protective device either on or under the feeder, I can now say that my yard has had visits from chipmunks, rabbits, groundhogs, possum, an injured red-tailed hawk, racoon, other neighbors' dogs and cats, a garter snake, bear and even a coyote. One winter we had the tracks of a least weasel in the snow, but that was the only time.

(RE Berg-Andersson)

I have come outside in the early morning to chase off mallard ducks, Canada geese and turkeys, and I'm not even in the most rural or exurban of suburbs.

When we bought the house there were five apple trees, one pear, one cherry and a blueberry bush. Atop the bush was rusted metal fencing that I removed. Let the birds get the fruit, I thought. (I was still thinking like a city person at this point. Now, I'd have protected the bush and harvested the beneficial fruit.) When we were forced to have foundation work done, that and other plants were dug up. I now greatly regret not trying to save at least some of these plants.

When new plants were put in I included asters because these late-summer, early-autumn perennials were flowering at the time. I came out to go to work one morning and found a rabbit was eating heartily. This happened over the course of a week. Then I put in a small fence at the border of this plot.

That stopped the rabbits. But when I discovered the bushes in the back were being eaten from the top, I discovered deer. I've been living with the damage, and the deer fencing I put in in 1995 and have adapted over the years, ever since. (It is effective except against chipmunks, which can get behind or under it and do a lot of damage digging.)

Old Mine Rd. bear (RE Berg-Andersson)

The bear is a relatively recent phenomenon, as I've written before. Bears have damaged both of my feeder poles - one completely - and I've had to bring the feeders in at night in the spring, when the bears are coming out of their dens hungry. (I don't put feeders out between Memorial Day and Labor Day.) I have only one apple tree remaining but it is loaded with slowly ripening fruit. Despite bear damage last year, the pear tree also has a couple of fruits growing. All of this will draw squirrels above, deer below and possibly another bear visit.

Bear visits can be deadly to pets, livestock, property. People who feed wildlife, be it an alligator or a bear, are mighty surprised when this wild animal comes back for more - and does not distinguish between your handout and your child, as one family learned tragically last year. Search "man arrested for feeding bear" and you'll find all sorts of articles. There is a reason this is a crime. These are wild animals, not pets. When I put out bird seed in winter it is to help birds that might not find a food source. I don't consider them pets. Bears are in their dens and the deer are hitting my neighbors' plantings.

Sure, it looks cute now... (Margo D. Beller)

Many people enjoy wildlife. They want to see the baby rabbits, the squirrels, the large waterfowl that come up on shore and into their yards. I am not among them because of the damage they can do, even the newborn fawn its mother left in the long grass under the apple tree. (MH had to mow around it.) I came out one day to find it had been placed behind my deer netting around my back plot. When it saw me it took out half the fencing trying to get away. I now block access with a wheelbarrow.

One winter I looked out front to see over 100 Canada geese on my snow-covered lawn, the street and the yards across the street. In the snow, all the area looked the same to the geese so they had traveled beyond their usual field behind my neighbors' houses. I got them to move off my lawn and when one of the neighbors came out across the street, the flock took off, their green droppings raining down. Since then the field has been cleared for our community garden and my neighbors put up fences and shrubs to keep the geese away.

...but it becomes this. (Margo D. Beller)

The pro-bear people blame homeowners in bear-prone areas for living there. My house was built in 1964 in a former meadow.

Is that my fault? I was a child in 1964, and as an adult I came out here to have my part of the American Dream - a house, some space, something I can call mine.

Garden plot with fencing. (Margo D. Beller)

I now know after 20 years or so that I have to share.

I feel a responsibility to my backyard. I want it to be taken care of and protected. Annie Leibovitz
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