Whitetail Deer Of All Age Groups

This is an interesting time to visit the Monocacy National Battlefield.  Leaves are beginning to fall and some of the smaller, younger age class, bucks are showing themselves regularly...

The buck in the next photos is thrashing a shrub in mock combat...

There are even some fawns with spots still visible...

Each year the deer create a licking branch in the same place...

Licking branches are like the bulletin boards of the deer world.  Each animal that passes by leaves scent from saliva or pre-orbital glands that lets the other deer know they were there. 
In the next photo a young spike buck is checking out the scent left by previous deer and leaving his own...

As the season progresses bucks will  make scrapes beneath these branches to advertise their availability to the does that are coming into estrus.

At this time bucks are still hanging out in bachelor groups...

They are beginning to spar with each other to determine the pecking order for mating rights...

 

Sometimes the sparring can be very entertaining...

 

 

Especially when it draws a crowd...

 

Sometimes the spectators join in...

 

But this is only play fighting compared to what will come in the weeks ahead.

Occasionally one of the mature bucks can be glimpsed in the early morning or late evening...

 

 

 

With a lot of patience, perseverance, and luck one might even catch a glimpse of an elusive coyote...

 

Thanks for stopping by, be well, and come again soon.