Suburban Bambi

Yesterday morning, at 0815 HRS, I happened to glance out of my master bedroom window. I have two vacant lots on either side of my house. It turns out that it was about an hour before the monthly mowing of those lots. The weeds were still up to about mid-calf to knee high, with a healthy smattering of wild flowers. Some movement caught my eye. About 150 feet away, just outside my nearest neighbor's fence and within a few feet of the treeline stood a white tail doe. About thirty five to 40 feet out into the field stood her spotted fawn. I'd say this fawn was about the size of a Labrador retriever. I'll leave it too more woodsy types to guesstimate how old that would be. I watched them for about ten minutes, somewhat amazed that they were out in the open long after sunup and in plain view in a residential neighborhood. The doe never once put her head down to graze. She just kept the lookout while the fawn - also not foraging - just gamboled in the field. He would slowly walk out to a distance of 35 -40 feet from the doe, look around for a bit, the suddenly turn around a run and jump in a wild zig-zag pattern back to the side of the doe. The fawn repeated that behavior about three times in the ten minutes before a red neck's macho, car-crushing, big-tired truck roared by and scared them both back into the woods. That would be the woods back behind that black Baptist church (Mt. Zion, I think) across Highway 40 from Saturday Park. So far they have not shown an appetite for any of my trees or shrubbery. It looked like the doe had just brought the fawn out to an open area for a good romp, if I may wax eco-weenie anthropocentric for a moment.