White-tailed Deer

Description:

White-tailed deer vary in size across their range with the smallest subspecies living in southern Florida and ranging to animals that on the average are twice that size in the northern part of their range. They are reddish brown in the summer and tend toward gray/brown in the winter. Males are larger than females and have forked antlers that are shed and regrown annually.

Habitat:

Forested areas of North America, but ranging as far south as northern South America. Increasingly common in suburban areas.

Notes:

I set up a trail camera in my backyard a couple of years ago and first recorded video of this buck over a year ago. In that video he has a badly broken front leg. Swinging from his antlers is a large bird feeder. Apparently he had either been injured and was finding easy food in the feeder or had been feeding out of the feeder when the suspending chain became entangled in his antlers and he injured himself trying to escape it. Fortunately he managed to get rid of the bird feeder, perhaps when he shed his antlers, but he still had the broken leg. I see him fairly frequently as he often beds down in the back of my yard. He still can't use his leg and it keeps him from moving freely. Still, it's good to see that he has survived two winters, including one very harsh one with this significant injury. It's a cautionary tale to keep bird feeders high enough that deer can't reach them.