The Daily Bucket is a nature refuge. We amicably discuss animals, weather, climate, soil, plants, waters and note life’s patterns.
We invite you to note what you are seeing around you in your own part of the world, and to share your observations in the comments below.
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October 10, 2018
Pacific Northwest
Standing outside my gate yesterday:
He’s a spiker Columbian black-tailed deer (Odocoileus hemionus columbianus), a type of mule deer. He’s wandering my neighborhood alone, which is pretty typical. I see deer often, we have a high density due to a lack of predators. They are habituated to people, as you can see. Our deer are also small compared to those on the mainland, possibly because of finite range hence forage, and no predation pressure eliminating the small and slow. Aside from a few killed by hunters in season, most of our deer die as roadkill. Dangerous for cars/drivers too. But a boon of meat for our scavengers like eagles, ravens, vulture, crows, raccoons.
He’s scouting out my gate, where I’ve been dumping buckets of windfall pears. No matter how many gallons I leave out there, they are gone by the next day.
Diet of these deer:
Mule deer are opportunistic, concentrate selectors. Compared with other ruminants, they have small rumens and gut lengths relative to body size; thus, they must eat small volumes of high-quality, easily digested food [121,192,215]. Mule deer consume the stalks, flowers, fruits, and seeds of grasses and forbs. They eat the buds, fruits, seeds (particularly acorns), stems, leaves, and bark of trees and shrubs [88,119,215,293]. They also eat fungi, lichens, algae, mosses, and ferns [135,185,215,293,340]. Cacti and other succulents may be seasonally important in mule deer diets in some areas [215,340]. Mule deer may eat aquatic vegetation, but according to Cowan [81], they do not normally feed in water >8 inches (20 cm) deep.
www.fs.fed.us/...
🌤 ☔️ 💨
Sun has come out today. We’re alternating between sun and cloud and rain these October days. Temp in low 50s with a light breeze. Low ground fog this morning.
What’s up in nature in your area today?
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