Everyone sees deer movement but some want it hushed, as though it were a secret trout fishing spot.
“People are seeing a lot more deer right now and some are being taken with the crossbows and other archery equipment. The youth hunt was successful (7,594), too,” said Wally Banfi, at Wilderness Fish and Game in Sauk City.
Summary total registration for all 2023 seasons (archery, crossbow, and youth) is 22,154 deer.
Vehicle drivers on rural town roads are the first to notice deer movement is increasing. Sometimes this notice is a moment too late and if the vehicle is still drivable, it’s a trip to the body shop after reporting to an insurance agent.
The bucks are doing things we all notice. A young bur oak, with its lower limbs several feet off the ground, was no match for a restless, testosterone-enriched buck who stripped the bark from several limbs with his antlers. The limbs looked more like antlers than limbs when he finally walked away.
The action was violent because the limbs were dormant and stripping bark from wood is not an easy task. In summer, when a lawnmower bumps a small tree, the bark pops off as though it were a pull tab. Given enough antler rubbing, the limb, and sometimes the entire tree, can be killed because the growing region is right there just outside the wood and inside the bark.
As with deer season in general, more than hunters and deer are impacted. A small tree may be someone’s prize landscape plant or one of hundreds of bur oaks planted for the next generation of fine oak lumber.
Deer scrapes, locations where bucks paw the ground with their hooves and chew on overhanging limbs leaving their scent, are not nearly as obvious to homeowners and farmers but are happy signs for hunters, deer watchers, and photographers. The scape will be visited almost daily.
Then there are actual buck fights, sometimes violent enough to break antlers, even lock antlers and fight to exhaustion and death. If not too late, a warden or wildlife biologist may be called to part the deer, sometimes by breaking an antler with a rifle bullet without hitting the animals.
Take advantage of the increased activity but at a distance. Place wire, boards, and metal posts around a favored planting or yard art. If not, live with the damage created by rock-hard antlers, animals loaded with testosterone, to make quick damage of anything in the way.
Other autumn animal activity abounds, too, including heavier prime coats on furbearers, brighter feathers on some birds, migrations of others, and hibernations of still others. The chipmunks and gophers are about to go down under.
The Poynette Game Farm continues to have biohazard protocols in place to guard against Avian Influenza, which has been isolated from a domestic flock of Minnesota turkeys.
“Our trucks, after going off location to stock birds, are disinfected when they come back” said Kelly Maguire, game farm manager of the pheasant stocking program.
Leaf fall is well on its way in deciduous forests, even before full color changes are elsewhere. One has to smile at those who talk of 100 percent of peak color. It’s never going to happen in mixed deciduous forests. Some leaves are changing, others falling, and still others green as grass.
Don’t let diversity sell autumn short, though. There are still bloomers out there including dark blue asters, frosting coated bottle gentians, and the ever tolerant witchhazel, just beginning its blooming and fruiting cycle.
White pine cones are dropping, empty of winged seeds. Pick them for tinder. Milkweed fruits are popping, releasing plumbed seeds now blowing in the wind.
Leaf changes may have disappointed a 2023 autumn but bittersweet fruits exploded red and orange just the same; black and red oak acorns make walking nearly impossible under some trees, and some animals are turning more vocal, including increased numbers of wild turkeys. Even gobbling may be heard with the first rifle shots of gun deer season.
Autumn began with a small fall, looking little to those hints of color. Now as it begins to twist down, it’s no less spectacular using a close eye or short lens.
Take autumn in by stepping back to see a panorama of color but also step forward to see a dew-laden cobweb or a chestnut bur giving us the first glance at a shiny brown seed.
— Jerry Davis is an Argyle native and a freelance writer who lives in Barneveld. He can be reached at sivadjam@mhtc.net or at 608-924-1112.
