{"id":105971,"date":"2022-09-05T03:12:07","date_gmt":"2022-09-05T09:12:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/?p=105971"},"modified":"2022-09-05T03:13:07","modified_gmt":"2022-09-05T09:13:07","slug":"puzzling-mule-deer-doe-behavior","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/2022\/09\/05\/puzzling-mule-deer-doe-behavior\/","title":{"rendered":"Puzzling Mule Deer Doe Behavior"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"TangledTangled Mule Deer does and fawns \u2013 Nikon D500, f7.1, 1\/1600, ISO 500, -0.7 EV, Nikkor 500mm VR with 1.4x TC, natural light<\/span><\/p>\n

Last week while I was up in the Wasatch Mountains is saw some interesting Mule Deer doe behavior after I started to take images of two does and two fawns. At first all of the deer were together drinking water from a creek. I included this photo of all four of them in what looked to be a tangled mess of legs, eyes, heads and ears. This photo made me chuckle.<\/p>\n

\"MuleMule Deer fawn crossing a creek \u2013 Nikon D500, f7.1, 1\/1600, ISO 500, -0.7 EV, Nikkor 500mm VR with 1.4x TC, natural light<\/span><\/p>\n

Within a minute one of the does and one fawn headed towards a thick stand of willows leaving one doe and fawn behind. The remaining fawn headed into the creek for another drink of water.<\/p>\n

\"MuleMule Deer doe and fawn with a creek \u2013 Nikon D500, f10, 1\/1000, ISO 500, -0.7 EV, Nikkor 500mm VR with 1.4x TC, natural light<\/span><\/p>\n

Then the young deer walked back towards the doe who had moved up onto the creek bank to have a look around. I was quite a distance from the deer and at a higher elevation looking down towards them both. Both of the deer soon settled back down.<\/p>\n

\"MuleMule Deer fawn on a grassy creek bank \u2013 Nikon D500, f10, 1\/1000, ISO 500, -0.7 EV, Nikkor 500mm VR with 1.4x TC, natural light<\/span><\/p>\n

The fawn moved onto the creek bank and started to feed on the lush green grasses. The doe, outside of the left side of this frame, moved towards the fawn.<\/p>\n

\"MuleMule Deer doe kicking her fawn \u2013 Nikon D500, f10, 1\/1000, ISO 500, -0.7 EV, Nikkor 500mm VR with 1.4x TC, natural light<\/span><\/p>\n

Then the fawn moved closer to the doe and she surprised me when she kicked the fawn with her left leg. I started to wonder if the fawn that she was with might not belong to the other doe that was still in the willows. Her behavior towards the fawn puzzled me.<\/p>\n

\"DoeDoe Mule Deer kicking her fawn \u2013 Nikon D500, f10, 1\/1000, ISO 500, -0.7 EV, Nikkor 500mm VR with 1.4x TC, natural light<\/span><\/p>\n

After I returned home I spoke with my friend Steve Creek<\/span><\/a> about the does behavior. He helped to make what she had done less puzzling to me. Steve knows a lot more about deer than I do.<\/p>\n

At this time of the year some of the fawns are still trying to nurse and the does are making sure that they don’t so they become self sufficient. I don’t know why I hadn’t thought about that but I hadn’t seen this behavior before. My thanks to go out to Steve for helping me learn more about deer.<\/p>\n

\"MuleMule Deer doe drinking from a creek \u2013 Nikon D500, f7.1, 1\/1250, ISO 500, -0.7 EV, Nikkor 500mm VR with 1.4x TC, natural light<\/span><\/p>\n

The fawn moved up slope after being kicked three times. The doe took a long drink of cool water from the creek before she also started moving up the creek bank onto the mountain slope.<\/p>\n

Me? I was happy to learn something new about Mule Deer.<\/p>\n

Life is<\/em> good.<\/p>\n

Mia<\/p>\n

Click here<\/span><\/a> to see more of my Mule Deer photos plus facts and information about this species.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last week while I was up in the Wasatch Mountains is saw some interesting Mule Deer doe behavior after I started to take images of two does and two fawns.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":105954,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[317,1731,26,773],"tags":[4004,4226,3940,3843,7600,10489,3801,4097,4464,4113,4070,11050,4067,10009,1632,4069,4022,4180,7217,13270,2315,9708,3996,4193],"class_list":["post-105971","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mule-deer","category-summit-county-utah","category-utah","category-wasatch-mountains","tag-adult","tag-behavior","tag-canyon","tag-creek","tag-creek-bank","tag-crossing","tag-deer","tag-doe","tag-drinking","tag-fawn","tag-female","tag-grassy","tag-immature","tag-kicking","tag-mammals","tag-mountains","tag-mule-deer","tag-odocoileus-hemionus","tag-stream","tag-stream-bank","tag-summer-3","tag-tangled","tag-water","tag-young"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/mule-deer-and-fawn-mia-mcpherson-0634.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p11Mom-rzd","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":102878,"url":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/2022\/06\/04\/oh-deer-what-a-wonderful-morning\/","url_meta":{"origin":105971,"position":0},"title":"Oh Deer, What A Wonderful Morning!","author":"Mia McPherson","date":"June 4, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Even though I am primarily a bird photographer I won't pass up the opportunity to photograph mammals when they come into my view like this Mule Deer doe did.","rel":"","context":"In "Mule Deer"","block_context":{"text":"Mule Deer","link":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/category\/wildlife\/mule-deer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Shedding Mule Deer doe mid stride, Wasatch Mountains, Summit County, Utah","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/mule-deer-doe-creek-mia-mcpherson-5130.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/mule-deer-doe-creek-mia-mcpherson-5130.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, 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photo of the morning was a Mule Deer doe in a stand of junipers and even then a cloud blocked the beautiful light. Yes, that is snow on the junipers, on May 1st!\u00a0","rel":"","context":"In "Mule Deer"","block_context":{"text":"Mule Deer","link":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/category\/wildlife\/mule-deer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Mule Deer doe in snowy junipers, Stansbury Mountains, Tooele County, Utah","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/mule-deer-doe-junipers-mia-mcpherson-7198.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/mule-deer-doe-junipers-mia-mcpherson-7198.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/mule-deer-doe-junipers-mia-mcpherson-7198.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/mule-deer-doe-junipers-mia-mcpherson-7198.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105971","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=105971"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105971\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/105954"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=105971"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=105971"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=105971"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}