Wild Delicate Seconds: 29 Wildlife Encounters

Two Fawns

Two Fawns 82 Two Fawns Both this morning and yesterday evening,while I was sitting outside eating my meals, in the exact quiet and soft light of those hours, a lone deer and two spotted fawns wandered into my yard. Such innocent faces, even in such times as these. I’d seen the mother a number of times before, standing tall-eared and august in the meadow, or browsing idly on the willow trees in my yard.What I didn’t know was that she was parent to two fragile creatures, timorous and knobby-kneed, not even half as tall as the green summer bracken. Looking at me, the two fawns blinked their eyes, batting their lashes as if I were the strangest sight they had ever yet seen. I was no more than twenty feet away and seated on the grass. Their mother seemed little concerned with this and wandered away over the bank. I was left with her two offspring, two tiny replicas of herself that pranced and played like two frisky colts, spinning in circles and leaping straight up in the air. For many minutes I was entertained in this way, the fawns darting back and forth,halting abruptly,then dashing in circles again.With each pause they stared straight at me, sometimes stamping their small hooves, I know not, if in frustration that I, too, did not play.Then from some unknown signal or scent they took off in one direction, shooting back in another, lifting themselves effortlessly into the air. I was left with a vision of their white tails raised on the wind and the idea that never had I had two more enjoyable guests to my table, but that in reality, I knew, it was I who was at theirs. ...