Monday, November 19, 2012

A Randy Little Buck + Weather Drama


[. . . just four days after this photo, we woke up to see this buck resting in an oakbrush grove just west of our house. He was still there in the early afternoon and we wondered if he had had a long night in an alfalfa field and was now chewing his cud. By late afternoon he was lying on one side, breathing hard. A little later he jerked his head back and stuck his nose up, antlers dug into the ground. An hour later he died. His body is still warm. His open eye is glazing over. I'll bury him in the morning. We've got no idea what the cause of death is, but we're heavy-hearted here tonight.]

[ . . . the next morning. an officer from the state wildlife division came this morning and took a close look. there was no gunshot or arrow wound. instead, the deer had swollen feet and bloating and lots of hair loss -- in all likelihood a victim of epizootic hemorrhagic disease. hope he impregnated some of those does so he'll live on.]

the unconvinced doe is just outside the frame



7 comments:

SUMMA POLITICO said...

That buck - that's the kind of pose I like! with a doe in sight!

SUMMA POLITICO said...

we are having threatening weather as in the stormy type photo... that buck has he had any luck? did he convince marie colbin that he's for real?

Scott Abbott said...

this little guy is having some luck indeed, following 5 does around. we figure the older and bigger bucks must have met unhappy ends during the hunting season, leaving this guy to grow up fast.

SUMMA POLITICO said...

Five does all to yourself - better be young as I recall. For as you get older the young does, as they song has it, they can make you weary! x m.r

Scott Abbott said...

indeed. remember that great story in the Decameron about the old anchorite who got a young and naive wench to help him put the devil, which he showed here, back in hell, which she possessed? she grew to like it and wore him down to nothing.

SUMMA POLITICO said...

I dont think i ever read the entire decameron, but my experiences of hussies of that kind is that they got themselves a lot of lovers. easily done if you are a doe and the hunters have not shot all the bucks, and no fundamentalist about to make moral judgments or call them witches. i have hussies on my mind as i am writing the "sidebar" on "erinyes" for our Moravian discussion an entire little essay on our man and his does!

SUMMA POLITICO said...

Well that certainly is said. I am going to look up "epizootic hemorrhagic " and put the link here if I can get one

Epizootic Hemorrhagic Disease (EHD) in White-Tailed Deer

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epizootic_Hemorrhagic_Disease

sun's out! will post a note on your Farmingham entry, which deserves some thought. You were a roughneck once?

http://www.michigan.gov/dnr/0,1607,7-153-10370_12150-26647--,00.html