Category Archives: Deer

Deer eating garlic mustard

Posted on by
Reply
Photo by Chris Bosak — A white-tailed deer eats garlic mustard in New England, April 8, 2022.

I’ve come across several articles that state white-tailed deer do not eat garlic mustard because of its bitter taste. Well, here’s proof that they do eat the highly invasive plant. Of course, the plants are young and tender and not as bitter this time of year, which may make it more palatable for the deer.

By the way, garlic mustard is edible for humans, too, and actually quite good in salads or by itself as a snack while wondering the woods. Now is a good time to harvest it while the leaves are young and tender. The flowers, when they arrive, are good to eat as well. To make sure you are eating the right plant, smell it first. As the name suggests, it will smell garlicy. It does have trace amounts of cyanide, as I have read, so don’t overdo it with the garlic mustard. (Many of the common vegetables we eat have trace amounts of cyanide, too, so you’d really have to eat a lot to be negatively impacted.) At least this highly invasive plant has some good uses.

Deer jumps over guard rail

Posted on by
1
Photo by Chris Bosak A white-tailed deer seen at Sherwood Island State Park in Westport, Conn., fall 2018.

I was hoping to come up with a more exciting headline for this post, but alas, I gave up before inspiration hit me. Besides, the headline kind of says it all.

Here’s a series of photos showing a white-tailed deer buck leaping over a guard rail dividing the access road to Sherwood Island State Park in Westport. I saw the deer walking across the road and figured, why not, let’s document him jumping over the barrier. The obvious unanswered question is: Why did it cross the road? (Sorry, bad joke.)

Here’s the entire series:

Photo by Chris Bosak A white-tailed deer seen at Sherwood Island State Park in Westport, Conn., fall 2018.

Continue reading →

Not just birds out there

Posted on by
1
Photo by Chris Bosak A white-tailed deer seen at Sherwood Island State Park in Westport, Conn., fall 2018.

The name of this site may be birdsofnewengland.com and the hobby may be called birding, but most birdwatchers, myself included, are always on the lookout for any type of wildlife. In fact, my interest in this hobby got its start by my fascination with a non-bird wildlife species: moose.

Some of the interesting non-bird wildlife frequently encountered while roaming New England’s woods, fields and bodies of water include beaver, mink, otter, muskrat, and fisher — just to name a few. Oh, and white-tailed deer, of course. In some areas of New England, such as southwestern Connecticut, deer are so plentiful they are seen as pests by some residents. In most areas of the region, they are revered as the magnificent animals they are.

I came across this handsome fellow the other day while looking for birds at Sherwood Island State Park in Westport, Conn.

Nice young buck

Posted on by
Reply

Photo by Chris Bosak A young White-tailed Deer in Stamford, Oct. 2014.

Photo by Chris Bosak
A young White-tailed Deer in Stamford, Oct. 2014.

I was looking for birds, of course, but this young buck (literally) was just off the trail and seemingly unfazed by my presence, so I grabbed a few shots of him. You never know what you’ll see out there. I found this guy at Cove Island Wildlife Sanctuary.

Feel free to share your bird and other wildlife sightings and/or photos. Send them to bozclark@earthlink.net

Find a baby deer? Leave it alone, it’s just fine

Posted on by
1

Here’s a column I wrote about a year ago that ran in The Hour (Norwalk, Ct.) and The Keene Sentinel (Keene, N.H). It is about finding baby deer that are “abandoned” — but not really abandoned, of course. Since it is that time of year again when people may stumble across baby animals, I figured I’d put this column out there again.

…

Photo by Chris Bosak A fawn hides in the woods, June 2013.

Photo by Chris Bosak
A fawn hides in the woods, June 2013.

What do old tennis balls, my boys’ penchant for baseball, and a nearby school have to do with this nature column?

Hang in there, you’ll find out soon enough.

First, let’s back up to winter. During snowless winter days I like to wander around the woods surrounding tennis courts and collect as many old tennis balls as I can. My boys used to love to join me in this endeavor. Now they kind of just tolerate the venture.

So why would I spend time and put up with the invariable scratches that come with such an outing? To have plenty of fodder for batting practice in the backyard. I live next to a school and the property is divided by a chain link fence about eight feet high. It makes for the perfect home run derby fence. I don’t have the bank account to fix all the broken windows that using a real baseball would cause, so we use old tennis balls.

The boys are getting bigger and stronger so lots of tennis balls go flying over the fence. Sometimes four or five pitches in a row are lost in the small p Continue reading →