This Week’s Creature Feature … Fawn Baby Fawn
In the last couple months, you may have seen small white-spotted deer curled up in brush and leaves or taking tentative walks through the woods — or across the road. It’s the tail end of fawning season for whitetail deer. After six or seven months of gestation, a new batch of fawns has arrived in the world.
The white spots they’re born with will fade away by the end of the summer. Those born at the birthing season’s outset in late April should already be losing theirs. At birth, the fawns usually weigh five to eight pounds; within two weeks they double in size. By winter they’ll have grown tenfold on their diet of milk, leaves and grass.
Young fawns emit no scent, but their mothers do, so they spend hours at a time away from the fawns to keep predators from finding them. When the mother returns it will nurse and eat whatever waste the fawn may have produced, giving the concept of motherly love a new, gag-worthy dimension.