This has been a puzzling morning (see my other post – Hedgehog observation (Mar 26, 2024) – meowing?).
I was walking along the roads in the private garden allotment area.
It was around dawn (visibility was already quite high).
There are two ‘main roads’ (both dirt roads) connected by smaller roads that also serve as the allotment boundaries.
We took one of the smaller roads and toward the end of this road I noticed two roe deer.
It is an area where roe deer are seen frequently.
As they do not forage on the road (there is nothing to eat there, at least not yet), I thought I would not bother them too much if I kept on my path and they simply had to either return to the riparian forest behind them or to move to their right into some gardens (which is what has happened many times before).
However, this time something was different.
As we had covered about half the distance of the road, the two road deer began bouncing around in a very confused manner and jumping against the fence on the left side (which was too high for them to leap over).
I was confused because I know the area well and, to my knowledge, there were no obstacles preventing the roe deer from simply escaping to their right (no fences there) or back (no fences there, either).
However, things change and I assumed that perhaps while I had not visited this area, someone had blocked the road.
I was afraid the roe deer would injure themselves bumping into the fence, so I wanted to make a quick retreat so that the deer could also retreat slightly in order to take unfenced route which was currently behind us.
We managed a few paces but there was thick mud on the road and in my effort to make passage for the deer, I slipped and fell.
One of the deer, meanwhile, had disappeared (which suggested to me that the road and/or the garden to the left had not been blocked after all).
The other deer was a buck and it was still trying to get over any fence on the left.
As I struggled up holding on to my dog’s leash firmly, the buck made a decision and it ran right past us.
The road is perhaps 2 – 3 metres wide and the buck was as near to us as 50 cm from my dog who is a very kind soul and does not attack animals / 1 metre from me.
This was an extremely bold decision.
I do not believe the roe deer think of me and my dog as predators.
The roe deer are altogether quite familiar with humans (although this particular subpopulation – to a lesser extent because they have more of forest cover and there is a lower number of humans visiting the allotments compared to other parts of town) and they also must have taken note of us (we hang out there relatively often and never harass them).
Thus, I would not venture to state that the roe deer buck had made a choice which was based on an assumption that we would harm him.
Still, running within 1 metre from a human and a dog is something a roe deer would probably not choose to do unless it was almost considered ‘the only way’.
I got to observe that the buck was not a youngling.
Its antlers were big and they had three points (a sign of maturity).
The individual was also not in any panic (even if it was scared) and it was obviously making calculated moves.
It was not acting out of a blind desire to get past by us at whatever cost.
It was deliberating the circumstance and watching us, ready to react to our response to its move.
As the buck disappeared into the riparian forest behind us, I walked up to the ‘main road’ to see what had blocked it.
There was no barrier visible to me, and the garden to the right had not been fenced over the weekend, either.
The only explanation I could come up with was that the roe deer buck had made a decision between running past us vs. running into another male’s territory.
I believe that the bucks have resumed their territoriality after winter (Roe deer observations (the week around Mar 20, 2024) – resuming territoriality) and the initial resettlement of social boundaries might be intense.
I know that there is another buck living in the riparian forest at the end of the road (in front of us, not behind us) and that was also a mature buck of at least 3 (but perhaps more) years.
The buck we encountered must have decided it was better to try to leap over the fence (his first choice) or to run past us (his second choice) than to intrude into another male’s territory.
These bucks were both mature (I have observed the other male recently in his territory).
The buck we met today was no inexperienced youngling driven to panic by the awareness of a larger buck residing nearby.
The social instinct must be very strong in roe deer males.
However, the other male had not even been nearby (the other roe deer appeared to have been in a friendly association with our male because it was apparently, initially, attempting to follow his lead but later realized that the social rules applied to it differently which might indicate it was a female – she could make her escape into whichever direction).
There was no immediate threat to the buck but the social rules were apparently embedded in its decision making to the point that it was prepared to take quite some risks in order to avoid trespassing.
I was awed with this courageous and polite buck.
I am using the term ‘polite’ purposefully because the buck was not facing immediate danger (unless there were some other roe deer nearby which I did not see) and his opponent (according to my observations) was an equal opponent.
Yet our buck wished to avoid confrontation with his neighbour and he took extreme measures to do so.
Our buck was obviously experienced and clever, and his action was not taken out of panic (I do not even believe he was motivated by fear).
It also counters the typical prejudice, namely, that males (of all animal species, including humans) wish to parade their status and to engage in conflicts to prove their ‘macho-ness’.
This male wished to be polite to the point he proved enormous courage.
Notes by Ieva 