Little Fawn!

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Today, a doe, a deer, a female deer, decided to leave her baby next to our neighbor's house while she went to forage around. Diana & Trevor noticed it when they came home from school. They went across the street to our neighbor, who does Wildlife Rehabilitation (she's currently got an osprey and some baby raccoons), to have her check and make sure the fawn was okay. The fawn got up and ran off a ways, and seemed fine. She said it was okay.

After a little while, it came back. That's when I got home from work and the kids pointed it out to me.

I was chatting with my sister, when I heard this "meep! meep!" sound. It's the fawn. So Diana goes out to see what's up, and it runs off again. She comes in and we figure it will come back like before.

Diana goes to her room on the other end of the house, and after a while calls me over because she hears the "meep! meep!" under her window. We have a fence around the yard that meets the house just under Diana's window. Then Diana looks and she sees the fawn is in the backyard! How it got in, we don't know. The dog doesn't escape as far as we know, so we're pretty sure there's no gap big enough... We'll have to figure that out when it's not so wet outside.

Anyway - the fawn is stuck in our backyard. Diana goes to open the big gate (wide enough for a car) and then we both come back in the house. Trevor put Liberty in her kennel so she wouldn't chase the deer.

So we're thinking we're good here. Well, turns out Liberty noticed the fawn trying to get back to the big gate. So she barked. The fawn runs back over to the wrong side of the yard.

Now we notice the doe has returned. Little baby is going "meep! meep!" for all its worth. I go & open the small gate under Diana's window, and we want to try to herd baby back to mom.

Diana goes to the waaaaay back part of the yard so she can come from behind the fawn. I'm more in the middle of the yard, ready to herd baby back toward a gate. After a bit, I see baby come along the fence. Mom has already run away because she sees people. We manage to get baby back a good ways toward the gate. Mom is nowhere to be seen.

Diana & I realize if MOM comes in the gate, she's not going to be very happy with us, so we go ahead & leave baby to find it's way to the gate again. This time the dog is in Diana's room.

Once it gets over its fear, the fawn works its way over to the corner of the fence. It starts again with the "meep! meep!" and Mama Doe is still on the other side, trying to get to her baby.

I decided to go ahead & see if I can herd baby out again. So I went along the fence, and finally, the fawn managed to find the doorway through the gate. It took off across the neighbor's yard, and found it's mommy. I went to the other side of the house to close the car gate, and watched the pair make their way up the street. Every noise (like the gate scraping the ground) caused the fawn to drop down into the grass again. Eventually, they were out of sight.

Then Lee drove up and it was time for dinner. The End.