Thursday August 26, 2021

 
 
                                       Wednesday Night Regret


     I saw the fawn through the window overlooking Mikinaak Creek; it acted lost and bewildered, alone there on the point in the shoulder-high grass. It hesitated at the waters edge, then quickly backed away, almost in a panic; its eyes and ears in over-drive; it could not cross the creek to safety.
 

     Not seeing another deer with it, I went upstairs, phone receiver in hand as I was talking to a friend just then; to alert my wife to the goings-on below our upstairs window. We have a large window in our living room where, with a pair of binoculars and a camera always at hand, we’ve recorded years of comings and goings of wildlife populations both big and small; winged, walking, and running; some standing still, looking at us looking at them and seeming almost as curious.

     The fawn had a mother. “There,” my wife said pointing the larger animal out; the mother too seemed high-strung and nervous, a phenomenon we’ve seen before when coyotes or wolves are on hunting along the field edge or woods.

     But I had recently came in from being outdoors many hours, so I doubted close-by predators were the problem; when it dawned on me perhaps I had been the predator. I had been on my four-wheeler, a new-old vehicle I rarely use for such long duration since I had purchased it. I must have scared the deer from their hiding places, that was it; and had parked ‘the beast’ in the shed where its acrid scent still carried on the wind.

     I had purchased the 10-year old ATV (all terrain vehicle) this spring at the wife’s urging; she worried about the long walks I often take alone in the evenings, thinking a four-wheeler would longer serve me than my two-legs I’ve had since I was born; ATVs have their place in a rural setting, but I’d be the last person to say their place is on an evening walk or even out in a field where my two old legs have reliably taken me. 

     I have found one or two uses for it since we bought it, neither of which was creating bedlam for deer who are not habituated to ATVs, where they were not before.