Deer Junction

The particular backyard that we share with our neighbors has, for some inexplicable (or maybe, explicable) reason, become a thoroughfare for white tail deer. The picture below is from Google images to show you what we are up against:
I personally seem never to be able to actually see these rabbits with long legs, noses and tails, but I have spoken to actual people in my family who have. All the tracks in the snow tell the story, though. While I am peacefully fighting bad guys, having babies or unplugging monstrous plugged toilets during the night (think about it. The answer will come), the white tail deer are carousing in my neighborhood.

They come from or to the neighbor's yard from or to mine. How confusing. Coming or going, I don't know. What I do know is, there is a bird feeder on the neighbor's deck, where all those tracks end up eventually. There are also a couple of suet feeders to the right of the arborvitae on the right. You can see the deer tracks veering off around the trees. As if some intrepid white tail wanted to see if by some miracle during the day the suet feeders may have burst open, making it possible to gobble up the fat and the seed in them.This is where the deer trail off after stomping around under OUR feeder, which they empty during the night, keeping us from filling it during the day. Or quite possibly, they trail up the street into our 'hood this way, and then check out the neighbor's for whatever they can holla up. Dunno. What gets me is we watch for deer when we are driving anywhere, but to avoid them. When we are in the mountains, we watch for deer so we can gawk. Go figure. What would a New Yorker do out here? They would be stopping every 5 minutes to see deer or pheasant. Which I saw yesterday in abundance in northern Iowa. Pretty gutsy, those guys. There were 17 of them out in a field. Fields are white right now, and pheasant are dark. Maybe they don't have any natural flying enemies. I'm just saying...it were me, I would wear some camo or sumpin'. There are at least a couple of ROBINS up here, and have been for about a week. Either they are very confused or they are from the Arctic Circle and think -20 degrees is balmy. This is robin #1.
Here is a picture of the OTHER robin's hiney, (NOT a racial slur, it's hiney because it's short for HIND END) because he is being obnoxious. This was taken January 22, 2009. In IOWA. In all fairness, today the temp got up to 34. But these guys have been around for a while - since the first of the year.

This is the site of the purported attack by a hawk or other raptor, about which I previously wrote. I think another one happened after the last snow, but the tracks are too degraded to photograph now. And if you want to know why I didn't take the pics when they were fresh, it's because it was -0 out with a wind, and I just didn't think it was THAT important, that's why. If you compare this to my drawing (see http://iloveshibori.blogspot.com/2008/12/mr-falcon.html ) you will see that it was fairly accurate in the way things look, with the exception that this photo is taken from a completely different direction altogether.
On another other side note, Mr. Falcon was back today. Possibly. Hero hubby saw something but wasn't sure. I tend to err on the side of throwing caution to the wind, so I am going to say that my hypothesis is correct, and Mr. Falcon shows up once a month to hunt in this general area.

It's my blog and I can err when I want to.