I write to tell you that I am always surrounded by animals. The woods are thick enough with pine and oak trees that I can barely see my neighbors’ houses, so sometimes I like to imagine that I have no human neighbors, and the only creatures sharing the woods with my family are nonhuman. The animals do outnumber us, by a lot. But somehow I can’t divorce humanity from my imagination, or my kids’. This is why we have started naming the deer.
We often anthropomorphize the bears, bobcats, and mountain lions that frequent my yard on a mountain slope, but the turkeys and the deer are too numerous to name. But this season there seems to be more deer than usual, and more repeat visitors than usual. They are getting to know us, I think, so we are getting to know them a little better too.
It has been a colder winter than most, according to climatological records, which may or may not exist by the time you are reading this, and may not ever be kept again in this land; who knows. It was still 2.4 degrees warmer than average, but the winter of 2024-25 has been very cold. I wonder if this is why the mule deer have stuck around more than usual. My yard faces south-southwest, so it is always in the sun, and the snow on my slope melts faster.
My yard is also the only one that is not fenced, so they feel welcome here. They sleep among the trees on my property even though my dog’s scent is everywhere. Their fur blends in with the boulders and fallen leaves in the woods behind my house, so occasionally I don’t notice them until one of them sees me and stirs. They hurt the trees with their antlers and constant browsing, and they leave their scat piles everywhere, and destroy anything that remotely looks like a flower. I find this super annoying. But I will miss them when they go uphill for the summer.
For now, we recognize them as they pass through on their daily constitutionals.
Stronghorn is the largest buck, with a yellow game tag on each ear, a huge rack of antlers, and much more heft than any other buck on this mountain. I can’t be sure, but I think he is the buck that got his antlers wrapped in someone’s hammock last fall, and carried them around for three months looking like a moldy Christmas decoration. I think that explains the ear tags. Stronghorn captains a large herd, and he is afraid of nothing and no one. He and I have had a standoff before, me trying to drive uphill to my house, him standing in the road in my way, staring me down and refusing to move. Another time, I threw a pine cone at him to get him away from a young aspen, and I am pretty sure he laughed in my face. It was hard to tell, because I was 20 feet away, but I am pretty confident I’m right.
Stronghorn is the leader, but three or four other bucks are usually seen hanging around him. This time of year, they sit together near a clump of boulders while the does and yearlings browse my woods.* Scar is mid-sized and lost an eye, probably in a fight with another buck, probably with Stronghorn himself. He and Stronghorn are always near each other.
Bucky is a ridiculous young buck, all legs, skinny, and a little bit too aggressive with short, very sharp antlers. Chill out, bro, I say to him. He is clearly young. He has a lot to learn. He follows Stronghorn closely.
Youngblood is another literal strapping young buck. But he seems less charismatic than Bucky. He is just sort of there. He is the emoji with a “line mouth,” in the words of my kids. He is a meh deer. I suspect he might be a future Scar.
Then there are the does. Mostly, they are anonymous, because they look so similar to each other that we have a hard time telling them apart. But a couple does have enough distinguishing characteristics to earn names. Antidote is usually seen with at least three or four adolescents, which are maybe her own offspring and maybe their cousins; it’s not clear at this point in the season. Or she could just be a teacher type. She seems kind, I think? This is why she is named Antidote. She is not disdainful like Stronghorn.
Crestfallen is a doe whose history we don’t know, but she is often seen browsing alone, and usually straggles behind the rest of the herd when they are on the move. She seems healthy overall, just slower. I will see Stronghorn, Bucky, Scar, Youngblood, and about 15 does and yearlings cross my yard, and then the game camera shuts off. Then three full minutes later, Crestfallen ambles behind.
The young ones we don’t name. But we talk about them all the time, and we worry about their safety. My older daughter quietly talks about the one that was killed by a car going too fast at twilight last summer. We all talk about the one that leapt past the car as we brought my younger daughter home from the hospital for the first time, like a woodland welcoming committee.
The mule deer of Cheyenne Mountain are ever-present and insatiable and probably full of ticks, and they scrape their antlers on my small trees and they eat my rose bushes, and they look like furry boulders when it snows, and they stare at my house like watchfully beneficent mountain spirits, and their presence in my yard is more predictable than the weather. They drive me nuts, and after five years as their neighbor, I don’t know how I would live without them.
*I know they are not my woods, but I feel protective of them all the same.