Fawns in the Spring of 2025

These aren't good pictures because they are from my old trail camera in the woods. I have had this one battery operated trail camera for a long time. I check it once in a while but rarely do I see anything of interest. I have a lot of squirrels and raccoons. Deer come and go down the trail but nothing very note worthy. Imagine my surprise when I checked the camera this morning. These photos are of a doe just minutes before she gives birth. At about 9:12 AM on May 18, 2025 she is leisurely grazing. It was nothing that got my attention but in the next frame (at (9:40 AM) she was running with her tail held high, then at 9:49 AM she is walking toward the camera with a little one barely able to walk. What a thrill! Exactly one day later she is with her baby. I am sure the baby was hidden in the woods, and I probably walked right past it because because there are many pictures of her afterward where she is just grazing alone in the area. I have to keep my eyes open. I haven't been paying attention. The little one would be just over two weeks old now.

 

 

This photo was the doe just leisurely eating about 30 minutes before she gave birth. 

 

 

 

She started running around with her tail held high. 

 

 Nine minutes later she is walking with a baby. It is amazing.

 

One day later she is nurturing the little one. 

 

Now it is June 4, 2025. It is 17 days after I saw this series. This morning I saw a little fawn come out of the woods. It looks about two weeks old. They grow fast. 

 

I have no way of knowing if this is the little baby because they all look alike. I saw another pregnant Doe on another camera later on May 18th. She was obviously very pregnant. 

 

Today I also saw twins fawns. They are adorable and are about the same age as the single fawn I saw. I know what I will be doing the next few days. I will be watching and hoping for another look. The deer can be so annoying and eat all the tender plants in my flower garden, but there is no denying how cute these little fawns are. 

 

As far as the flowers, the deer eat a lot of them but there are still plenty of flowers for both of us. 

 

An Unusual Birthday Celebration

My youngest daughter is now 50 years old. Even though that fact makes me feel very old, she acts the same way she did as a child. She still loves her birthday. In fact, we tease her that she starts celebrating on May first and continues through the entire month. It's a birthday month instead of a birth-DAY. I never cared for my birthday but she loves it.

I'm not sure her birthday reached her expectations, but she did spend two full days of fun for me.

Since I wanted to go to a place called the Heckrodt Wetland Reserve and she loves hiking and nature also, we decided to start the day there. It is a free boardwalk in the City of Menasha, Wisconsin. It has three miles of trails with the opportunity to see and photograph a variety of animals and plants.

We had heard that the property had two owls with one having nested this spring. The owlets were able to be seen from the trail. We got there quite early and walked the trails. We saw a few animals but nothing more than I can see on a regular basis. She wanted to see a baby fawn laying all alone in the sun near a babbling brook. We saw some deer but no baby fawns. We saw pelicans, geese, various birds and small animals, but the trail was closed in the area of the owls. It appears that the owlets were about to fledge, and they didn't want any extra people scaring them during this process. It was a bit disappointing, but it was a peaceful walk and a lovely morning. There was a group of school children on a field trip and that could have forced more animals deeper into the woods.

We stopped at a bakery when we were finished and splurged on a tasty treat. It was delicious because we don't often do that. 

 

 

Next we met my oldest daughter and switched places. I drove home and they spent the next few hours at a spa. They had massages and loved being pampered. That is definitely not my thing so I was happy the two of them could spend time together. They finished the day with a trip to her son's track meet and dinner with the family. But wait, there's more.

 

The next day started off bright and early. My daughter's birthday also means a trip to the cemeteries. It sounds morbid, but it is actually a nice tradition. My mom, dad, grandparents and great grandparents are buried about two hours away from my home. Every spring before Memorial Day we make a trip there to clean up the gravestones and put baskets of flowers out. It was a very important thing for my parents and grandparents so I am continuing (along with my daughters) to keep up that tradition.

 

On the way up we had coffee and a treat at our favorite coffee shop. Two days in a row was heaven. Then as we were traveling the back roads of Wisconsin, my daughter pulled the car off the road. I thought we might have been having car trouble, when right up close was a baby fawn. It didn't have a babbling brook in the sunlight, but it was newly born and adorable. The mother was no where in sight, but the baby looked healthy. It was behind a fence so it was safe.

 

 

Then a little bit later down the road we came across a young eagle and a full grown one out in the field. It wasn't the best picture, but fun to see out of the car window.

The first cemetery was bustling with many people trying to take care of the graves before Memorial Day. I am sure this tradition will diminish as the years go by. The tradition of funerals and burials are becoming less and less, but right now there were several people paying their respects. The second cemetery we went to is an old country cemetery. It is very quiet and serene and we were the only ones there. It is where most of my mother's relatives are laid to rest. It is always a good feeling to just visit and feel all the history there.  

As we headed home, it was good to honor my family in that way. I imagine it wasn't the two-day birthday celebration my daughter would have chosen, but I appreciated it more than I can say. It's a good thing she celebrates for the whole month and maybe she can also do something for herself before the month is over. In the fall, my other daughter will take me to pick up the baskets and put everything to sleep for another year.

Horicon Marsh Road Trip

A couple months ago I wrote a blog about not putting things off. Recently I was reminded of it again. I am reading a book called The Measure by Nikki Erlick. It begins with everyone in the world receiving a box. Inside the box is a red string. The strings come in various lengths. It is divulged that the length of the string coincides with the time each individual has left in their life. To be truthful I haven't quite finished the book, but it sparks a question. What would you do if you got a short string? Would you live it up or would you curl up and wait for the end? Some people didn't open the box because they didn't want to know. I'm not sure, I might not open the box. It goes even further by asking what if you got a long string and your partner, parent, sibling or friend got a short string. How would it affect your relationships? It is an interesting premise for a book. 

As I was thinking of the book and my life, I know my string is pretty short considering my age but I refuse to give up. Young people won't understand, but my peers will. I say Get Up or Give Up. So today I got up.

My daughters have two files on me. Not actual files (I don't think) but mental files. One is my incompetence file. This file consists of stupid things I do like leaving the stove on or leaving the water running in the sink and leaving the room. I did that once, but got extra credit points for fixing my own garage door and brushing out a whole section of buckthorn in the woods. I was told recently that my file is almost empty for now. The second is an independence file. It contains things I do without asking for help like getting oil changes, calling for help when I need something repaired in the house, paying taxes and banking. I think I have kept up with that quite well. Where I come up short is getting in the car and having adventures by myself. 

Today was a nice day. I saw people posting interesting photos on one of my Facebook nature groups. Although I live on a marsh, the Horicon Marsh near Waupun, Wisconsin is huge and has many varieties of birds, ducks and marshland creatures that I don't see. I have wanted to go there, but I usually talk myself out of it. I did go there once. I saw whooping cranes and ducks, but not alone. I went with some friends. Although I have gotten a lot better at doing things by myself, I haven't gotten there yet. I have shared my experiences and adventures with someone my whole life. It is foreign to me to have experiences alone with no one to talk about it with or make decisions on where to go. One particular post was my kick in the pants to just go. There is a certain bird that doesn't live in very many locations. I have seen several pictures recently from Horicon of this bird so it was a good time to leave my comfort zone. Today I just decided to go. I ate lunch, filled up my gas tank, set the GPS and left town. My gosh, it only took 45-50 minutes to get there. I thought it was a lot further, and it was an easy drive. It was a bit cold and windy but when I got there the weather warmed up. 

I had one of the best days I have had in a long time. Horicon Marsh has a three mile loop auto tour. It has pull off areas with information as well as walking trails. I parked at the Egret Trail Boardwalk. I left my camera in the car and walked a ways down the boardwalk. Almost immediately I knew I should have the camera. I walked back for the camera. It wasn't busy today so I could take my time.

The first thing I saw was a tree full of Tree Swallows. There were hundreds of them (maybe thousands). I have them too, but not in these numbers.

This boardwalk is called Egret Trail for a reason. This area of the marsh is home to a lot of Great Egrets. They are a beautiful white bird. I watched for several minutes at a resting area. 

Nesting Canadian Geese were everywhere. I should say Canadian Geese ARE everywhere in the state but these seem to belong here. The babies are beginning to hatch so I was careful not to get too close to the parents. They squawked at me if I got too close. I wasn't going to tangle with them. The goslings were adorable.

I enjoyed the walk and the view as I walked back to my car.

 

 As I left the area, I saw Terns, Ring necked ducks, American Coots, and a Swan. 

 

 

As I left the Marsh I knew I would come back again. I drove and parked the car in different locations but didn't see the bird I had come to see. It is an even better reason to return soon.

 

As I returned home, I drove through Waupun. I was a little bit hungry but I wasn't in the mood for fast food. As it turned out, I found even faster food, Chocolate. Waupun has a chocolate shop named Guth's. They make delicious chocolates, and I am always in the mood for chocolate. I didn't know what to buy so I got a plain white paper grab bag. It contained a variety of what they sell.

 

 

It was a good day. Today just felt like a good day for an adventure, plus I got points in my independence file. Life has a way of teaching us the lessons we need to learn, even when we didn't know we needed them. All is well.