Wednesday, May 18, 2011

White-tail Fawn Wildwood's Newest Park Addition

One of the park's most photographed residents are white-tail fawns. 


This buck-fawn arrived at the park on May 12th, the photograph was taken when he was less than one day old.


The white-tail deer, also known as the Virginia deer, is a medium-size deer native to the United States with the exception of Nevada, Utah, California, Hawaii and Alaska. They are also found in Canada, Mexico, Central America and in South America as far as Peru.


White-tail deer eat a wide variety of food including leaves, legumes, cacti, and grasses. They also eat acorns, fruit, hay, corn and other food found in neighborhoods and farm yards. Their special four-chambered stomach allows them to eat things such as mushrooms that are poisonous to humans and Red Sumac.


White-tail deer communicate in many different ways using sounds, scent, body language and marking. All white-tail deer are able to communicate by producing audible sounds that are unique to each animal. Fawns make an a high-pitched squeal, known as a bleat, to call out to their mothers. The mother deer, or doe, makes maternal grunting sounds when searching for her bedded fawns. Another way that white-tail deer communicate is by raising their white tail, sending an alarm to other deer in the area that can see it.

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