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Anyone who has ever stumbled across a perfectly healthy whitetail fawn bedded down in the wild — and had sense enough to walk away and leave the animal undisturbed — is sure to appreciate this story. Those who haven’t might learn a little something about whitetail ways.
All of the stuff you’ve heard and read the about the maternal instincts of whitetail does is right on the money. The intimate bond mothers have with their little ones is inherently strong.
Does frequently leave their babies cloaked in tall grass and other obscure places while they venture elsewhere to forage for food. It is not uncommon for the separation to last two hours or more.
Total abandonment is rare. Though accidents can happen, a healthy doe will always come back to the very spot where she left her fawn. I recently saw the magic unfold right before my eyes.
Fawn in a field
Shift to late July. The back pasture at our place was waist-high in summer weeds and the weather was unseasonably cool. It seemed like a good time to do some brush hogging. In reality, it wasn’t.
Fawning season was winding down, so I used caution as I crept around the outer edge of the pasture in low gear.
The plan was to make loops from the outside and gradually work my way in. It’s typically a two-hour job on my little John Deere.
Midway through the first pass I noticed a small opening in the thick canopy of weeds ahead. Thinking it might be a washout caused by recent flooding, I veered right and stopped for a closer look.
There was no washout. The weeds were pressed flush to the ground. It was clearly a bed of some sort, but nobody was home.
That’s when I saw a fawn weaving its way through the weeds 50 feet ahead of the tractor. The deer looked to be 1-2 weeks old. It looked back, then scrambled onward before melting into a thick patch of sunflowers near a ground hunting blind I erected last fall. The fawn was about 150 yards away the last time I saw it.
It was a terrible feeling knowing I’d just flushed the youngster from the hiding spot where its mother had left it. I thought about abandoning the area for fear of messing things up even worse, but something told me to stay.
I’m glad I did. What happened next was truly spectacular. In fact, it may have been the coolest show I’ve ever witnessed in Mother Nature. Just call it search and recovery at its finest.
Momma comes back
The doe returned about two hours later. She was positioned right beside the vacant bed, but she made no attempt to flee as I inched the tractor beneath a shade tree and killed the engine.
It was obvious the doe had no idea as to the whereabouts of the fawn. She zigzagged the immediate area, stopping occasionally to listen, watch and check the wind for scent. Her instinctive style was meticulous. It was almost as if she were following a grid of some sort.
It was sad seeing the animal so anxious, especially knowing she was more than a football field away from where the fawn was last seen. At one point the doe headed the opposite direction from which the fawn had run, but quickly reversed track and turned east before disappearing into the woods from which she’d come.
At first it seemed as though she’d given up the search. But she hadn’t. The doe reappeared a few minutes later, this time in the exact spot where the fawn was last seen.
The deer stood beside my ground blind for several minutes and never moved. Its eyes were glued to the jungle of cover where the fawn had run two hours earlier.
Bingo. Moments later, the baby deer raced out of the weeds and settled in by its mother’s side. I lost sight of both deer for several minutes before she led it into small opening. There, she groomed and nudged the youngster’s head and ears before leading it back into the woods.
Lesson learned
I learned a valuable lesson that day. Fair weather or not, never again will I mow a pasture in June or July that could easily wait until later in August. Fawns are more mobile and wary by then.
If you do mow during fawning season, do it in low gear and keep a very watchful eye. Walking the field beforehand is never a bad idea. Be especially mindful around the edges of overgrown pastures or hay fields.
The encounter also reinforced what wildlife experts have been preaching for years: If you find a fawn alone in the wild, don’t pick it up thinking it has been abandoned by its mother.
If the fawn isn’t injured, covered in fire ants or in obvious distress, leave it be and walk away. Chances are good its mother is nearby. She may even be watching you from a distance, waiting until the coast is clear to return.
Not every fawn encounter story plays out a happy ending like mine did.
It’s sad to think about, but plenty of fawns are inadvertently run over and killed by tractors, hay cutters and brush hog mowers every spring and summer.
Others are found and plucked from their hiding spots by well-meaning individuals who think they are doing the animal a favor, when in reality they are not. In many cases, they could be writing the animal a death sentence.
Most people have no idea how to care for and feed a fawn. Likewise, many fawns poached from the wild end up getting sick and dying, or getting passed off to a wildlife rehabilitator who is already strapped with the time-consuming and costly tasks of caring for other orphaned animals.
Something else to think about is the law.
It is illegal to possess fawns and many other game animals in Texas without an official permit. Take one home and you could get a visit from a local game warden. The fines can be brisk.
TPWD biologist says fawn crop is above average in many areas
Fawning season is beginning to wind down in most of Texas, and the word from the experts is it has been a good one. Big numbers of little ones are on the ground in many areas of the state.
Peak fawning time varies with the region. It typically runs from May through early July, though it’s not uncommon for a few stragglers to hit the ground later on.
Texas Parks Wildlife Department white-tailed deer program leader Blaise Korzekwa says this year’s fawn crop has been exceptional. This is especially true east of Interstate 35 in the Pineywoods, Post Oak and Blackland Prairie regions, where big rains from spring through early summer combined with mild temperatures created optimum conditions for fawn production and survival.
In addition to lush grasses that fawns were able to use as thermal cover, the moisture resulted in abundant forbs and other nutrient-rich goodies to bolster milk production among does.
“It’s shaping up to be a really good year,” he said. “Our herd composition survey data gathered so far is indicating a fawn crop that is well above average in those areas, as well as the Cross Timbers. The Hill Country is looking to be below average, mainly due to drought.”
Korzekwa says the average fawn crop for the Pineywoods, Post Oak and Blackland Prairies is about 35 percent. Of the three regions, the Pineywoods typically comes in the lowest at around 30 percent annually.
The numbers are significantly higher across the board this year. Korzekwa says fawn production in the Post Oak is about 52 percent, 45 percent the Pineywoods and 61 percent in the Blackland Prairies.
It’s the second consecutive year for a bumper fawn crop in the Post Oak and Blackland Prairies. The statewide average in 2023 was 44 percent — the highest recorded over the last 10 years.
A bumper fawn crop won’t mean much for hunting prospects this coming season, it could have a significant impact down the road. More fawns now means more bucks on the landscape in seasons to come. Not all of those will live to maturity, but a bunch of them will.
Matt Williams is a freelance writer based in Nacogdoches. He can be reached by email, mattwillwrite4u@ yahoo.com.
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