the deer are back; so are the bobwhite

It's been a relatively deerless summer. We don't have a flower or vegetable garden to tempt the animals. only a relatively natural setting plus a dog. But the deer are back. Not just the usual doe with two fauns but a collection of 8 or 9 animals that kept the dog barking all night and that only scattered at dawn when I took him for a walk down to the pond (I could barely restrain him!). They all ran one way into the woods except for a big, handsome buck with a good-sized rack of antlers. He first stood his ground, facing me and then bounded across the neck of the pond, heading into the high grasses back of the Weesuck Creek shore. Do male deer have harems? Was he trying to defend his flock or draw attention to himself and away from them?

In a totally unrelated development, a few eggshells scattered on the path near the neighbor's dock jutting out into the creek, was an oddity. These big, white eggshells cannot belong to any native birds and we do not have any loose chickens running around the property. The explanation? They must have been brought here by raccoons as booty from someone's garbage!. There are plenty of mussel and crab shells scattered in the woods and out on the dock and I have now come to the conclusion that these are also due to raccoon omnivory!

Birds? Oh, yes. The damp, cloudy weather with winds from the southwest has effectively put a halt to migration around here but there were Marsh Wrens -- heard and seen -- in the marsh this morning and a flock of young Am Goldfinches also working the marsh edge. But best of all was a flock (covey?) of six Bobwhites, presumably young birds, right outside our screen porch. I actually heard their peeping flock calls before I saw them. They stayed for quite a while, congregating under the flaps of granddaughter Juliette's tent where they proceeded to take extensive dust baths. Only after about a hour of this, did they decide to trot off. These birds are molting into mature plumage to the point where you can see which birds are male and which are female. Hope they make it through the winter!

Eric Salzman