I found this book in the new non fiction section at Weyenberg Library in Mequon, WI. I hate the deer; they are so very, very destructive on my property. I have always called them gigantic rats because of their pest status. But I decided I might be interested in reading this book. Maybe it would help me keep them away from my treasured shrubs, perennials and annuals. But when I began to read this book, my feelings changed somewhat. I had no idea these animals had so much of a social structure. Nor did I appreciate how much they knew about their environment, climate, and each other, and how much they communicated with each other about that knowledge. I learned they communicate with scent, with body language, and with their raised white tail among other methods, but none of these methods are vocal, of course. I learned about their family groups with daughters staying with their mothers for several generations and there possibly even being a grandmother leading this family group. I also learned that the young males gather in small groups as well, often with an older experienced buck from whom the younger males learn. The older buck does not purposely teach them; in fact he protects himself and lets the younger go first if there might be danger. But the young males do learn just by hanging out with the patriarch.
The author is very dedicated to conservation and to the protection of the animals on her property even down to the flies that take refuge in her barn turned into her office, and to the mice and rats that take refuge in her buildings. After her most active mousing cat leaves her home, she has to resort to some pest removal of some of these rats with poison and experiences terrible guilt as the poison spreads to other animals through the rat carcuses. One year when the oaks failed to produce acorns, she went against the Department of Nautral Resources recommendations of her home state, New Hampshire, and began to feed corn to the deer and by default to a large local flock of turkeys. She spends a lot of time justifying this and countering her justifications with the reasons against it offered by the local experts. In the end, one tends to lean toward the author's feeding decisions even though I still get very put out at these large mammals when they eat my flowers.
I enjoyed reading this book and indeed developed a new respect for an animal that I had felt was very dumb. Deer are not dumb nor are the turkeys that the author writes so much about. Now I just have to figure out how to outsmart this ungulate species so that I can coexist without so much frustration. One method is to plant primarily flowers and shrubs that the deer do not usually eat. Following are some pictures that show some of those plantings. Some of the flowers that both the deer and I enjoy will need to be fought for with sprays and barriers and other methods of keeping the deer away. And after reading this book, I now know why nothing that I do lasts for very long. I used to say that the deer got used to a certain spray and learned to eat around it. Now I know indeed that this animal, much smarter than I had appreciated, does indeed learn to outsmart me. The ungulates have survived for millions of years. We are probably a relatively new species on this planet compared to their ancestors.
The wild bergamot and the white and purple coneflowers in this sunrise picture are not the deer's favorite and grow in borders around my property. Likewise below are daffodils and bleeding heart, also usually ignored by the various mammals around our property.
How to tell its fall!! Here in Wisconsin, we have had one of the hottest summers on record and statistics are similar across the country at least from the Rocky Mountains east to the Atlantic coast. But a front has gone through and now the air is cooler, there is a wonderful breeze! Some people would call it a wind. We are opening the windows and turning off the AC. This year's two young eagles are practicing their flying. One landed on our neighbors' chimney and my husband caught a picture or two. It is still so exciting to see those birds as our neighbors here on Lake Michigan. The purple coneflowers outside my dinette window are turning chocolate brown as they end their flowering season. But there are gold finches in droves on the seed heads. The gold finches nest late and therefore are probably still feeding their fledgelings. I hear our neighborhood bluebirds occasionally give their bubbling song and they are hunting in our backyard. Of course, these may be northerners moved in on their way south. Today I heard a wren singing. That usually doesn't happen in September. The little bird must feel the same invigoration that I feel with the lowered temperatures and humidity. A hummingbird is making the rounds of the flower heads. It comes around the corner of the dinette where there is a window cranked widely open to catch the refreshing breeze. The little buzzing bird stops in midair as only they can do and looks in the open window. It obviously sees something different than its usual rounds. Then it quickly moves on. These little birds with their high metabolism and need for constant nutrition, with their complex tiny brains that keep track of all the flowers they visit and the time it will take for each flower to reacccumulate its nectar, can notice tiny little changes on their daily rounds. There are apples on our flowering crabapple tree and every morning a doe and her two half grown fawns visit the tree to get what apples they can, the doe standing on her hind feet to reach those on the lower branches, the fawns of course eating off the ground. I haven't seen any signs of the males yet but that will come shortly as the males enter the rutting season. They will strut across our yard, neck muscles standing out and looking like kings of the deer world, seeking the females that are receptive. Monarchs are starting to move south along the Lake Michigan bluff. I must remember the broad wing hawk migration at Concordia University along Lake Michigan. It is usually around September 18 or within 5 days each side of that date, when a cool front with a Northwest wind moves through moving those birds up against the lake shore. Then a viewer might be privileged to see kettles of hawks circling over head and slowly peeling off to move further south. Why do these kettles as they are called form? Raptors generally don't like to fly great distances over water. They rely on thermal updrafts to help them rise and not as many thermals develop over water. Since the broad wings all migrate at about the same time which is a specie specific trait, there will be 100s of these birds in each thermal creating these circular formations of birds. Each individual bird rises to the top of the thermal and when the rising hot air cools and ceases to rise the bird peels off the top of the air column and glides, losing height until it finds the base of another rising air column. This formation resembles a kettle boiling over. Hence the name -- a kettle of hawks. 
