The Fawn on the Lawn

At the end of May 1999, not long after we saw the Mets slugger Mo Vaughn hit a prodigious home run at Shea Stadium, I came out of my house to take a walk and found a newborn fawn curled up at the end of my front lawn. There was nothing between it and the street but the curb stones.

I thought it was dead. I prodded it with my foot and it stirred. I went inside to tell my husband.

I was between jobs then so I could be at home to watch whether anyone or anything would bother it. None of the adults, kids or dogs that passed by did so. But its mother must've noticed the traffic because the next day it had been moved to the long grass at the rear of the backyard where I almost didn't see it. The grass was longer than it should've been because our mower was in the shop.

We christened our visitor Mo Fawn.

I mention this because the other week we had our second fawn on the lawn. I came out of the house and found it curled up in long grass under the apple tree. Once again I prodded it with my foot to see if it was alive. It stirred. This time, before telling MH, I took its picture.

The last time I had learned from my brother-in-law the naturalist that newborn fawns have no scent, which is why the dogs had ignored Mo when he was on the front lawn. But then, as now, I was concerned kids would pass through and bother it or leave their scent, which would cause the mother to abandon the fawn.

MH mowed the lawn and left a large swath of long grass around Mo Fawn II. No one bothered Mo and I was sure he'd be gone when Mom saw the grass had been cut. I was wrong. I came out the next day to find Mo in about the same position he had been the night before.

The last time, a doe with a fawn had come through the yard, looked at Mo, then moved on. Mo started bleating so piteously it tore at my heart. I felt helpless. I was trying to find an animal control number when MH called me to the window.

The biggest doe I'd ever seen was feeding little Mo. Mom had come! After he was fed she led him away, as nature intended.

However, when it comes to deer in suburban New Jersey, this is not a given. The leading cause of deer death is not human hunting or animal predators but collisions with cars.

So I had an uneasy feeling seeing Mo II. Was Mom alive? Was she hit by a car? Was she poached by someone with a bow and arrow?

Wait a day, MH counseled. Hope for the best. He was right.

I work from home now, and later that day I came downstairs for a break and saw Mo II's mother cleaning him -- the only time I'll ever be glad to see a deer in my backyard.

She led him to the low flood wall and jumped over. He tried to jump and failed. He got agitated. She waited. He tried again and, in the gangly way fawns have, he made it. He followed her across the lawn, across the street and into one of the few bits of woods not cut down in Morris Plains for a street or a housing development.

The fawn on the lawn was gone. For now. I've no doubt Mo, once weaned, will start eating shrubbery and then he won't be so cute anymore.

Presuming he's not hit by a car, of course.

The more we build, the less we leave in woods for birds, deer and other creatures and the greater the chance of destructive human interaction.

All animals have it tough in this human world. MH and I did our small part. I don't begrudge Mo Fawn II his life.

But he should know I will be sure to chase him, his mother and any other deer off my property the next time.