a winter sleuth - blog 4

     In the summer, the trees are covered in leaves, spiders, and ticks; thorns are longer, stronger; snakes are awake and moving; poisonous weeds are in full bloom. In winter, snow and cold temperatures tames these threats into submission. In the summer its best to stay on the trail, but in winter, there are many different ways to walk, many different directions to explore. No season is better to learn the land and its topography.

With no leaves, the blank silhouettes of trees stand contrast with snow like an Ansel Adams photograph. Without poisonous weeds or snakes, the brushy, wooded areas are safer to tread. Without the snap of twigs and rustle of leaves, each step has more stealth and chance of coming across a deer. With snow on the ground, you can walk in nearly any direction, but the land, trees, and brush guide you nonetheless. There are impassable areas of thick thorny brush and unclimbable, steep hills, and the deer use this to their advantage just the same as a patch of grass growing in the winter.
 

     The details and lay of the land are important to survival, and this area appears to provide many advantages for feeding, roaming, and sleeping. It's this area, bordered on nearly every side, that is their home. From feeding to escape, the topography of this ridge seems to help the deer. On the western edge, where I enter, there is a gravel parking lot, a baseball diamond, and the front of the park, where there are grassy knolls and dog parks. On the southern border of this area, there are residential homes that line the ridge of land. To the east, down over the slope, there is a road that divides this area of the park from another. The northern side of the ridge slopes down to a stream that has cut through hills from years and years. This is the only border that broadens into the rest of Frick Park. It's this pocket, this niche, of the park that they make their home.

Sleeping near the cliff for sight and protection.

The ridge, the highest point of ground, is especially advantageous for the deer. Although the area is fenced-in by backyards, dog parks, and roads, this also protects and limited the intrusion of other animals and predators into the area. Aside from a flowing water source and food supply, there are gains from the topography. I make the assumption because there are patterns to their sleeping spots.

You can just barely see three spots spread out here.  The last is beyond the log, and the second is in front.

There are few, if any, spots beyond the stream on the northern border, near the dog parks, or any imprints are found in clearings, or near the eastern road.  It's the flat parts of the ridge where they cluster.  On a single day, I find 15 to 20 spots total. It's impossible to say if the deer move through the night to other beds, or if each spot represents a different deer. The spots tend to be in clusters, of two to four. Each deer rests about three to four feet away from the others, and this positioning appears intelligent and strategic.
      There are three large, possibly buck, spots along the lower cliff of the ridge, and further up, there are groups of three and four spread over the flat expanse of wooded area.  This is where they live and roam and hide.  They do not sleep in the cleared and replanted area; it's too sparse and open to wind and sight.

 
     Their tracks travel through, and their feeding is clear, but they sleep on the ridge.  It's on the ridge where they bed, and where they return after a day of roaming and searching.  From the stream to the road, from the homes to the dog park, and all through the park they roam, but it's the ridge where they sleep, and I see them most.  Without the snow and cold temperatures of winter, I wouldn't traverse this area so easily.  The steep hills are loose with dirt in the summer and dangerously covered with leaves in the fall.  In winter, snow packs under foot and enhances a good hike through nearly any part of the park.  Winter clears the leaves and allows a clearer vision through the trees.