Every king looses his crown…eventually.   The neat thing about the whitetail king of our woods “Broad Beams” is that he just grows back a new crown on the top of his head each spring.    He is old now, very old.  He has haunted our woods for the duration of our time in this home.  My husband and I have grown more attached to him than any of our other deer, perhaps because of his enormous size and charisma or perhaps because we simply know him the best.    Each and every time I see him, my heart beats just a little bit faster.

Broad Beams comes by every day.    He is shy around “strangers” and will lay low if he hears voices other than ours inside our home.  But he knows Alan and I, and if we are here alone, he just strides right up to the house.   Below is one of my favorite scenes through our hearth room window…Broad Beams approaching on the deer trail.  When he sees me standing in the window taking his picture,  he will often stop and pose for me before proceeding.  Then he emerges onto the scene like the great titan that he is.

Each year the antlers  on Broad Beams have grown back a bit differently which is typical for whitetail deer.   The  size of his antlers is on the decline now because of his advancing age.   He is a magnificent, battle torn warrior, wearing the scars from many, many years of maintaining his reign as King.     These post-rut pictures (above and below) were taken this January at age 8 1/2.  Indeed he is quite old for a wild whitetail deer.

Alan and I  hike in our woods each March, looking for antlers that have recently been shed by our deer friends.  It is like a treasure hunt.  We find something every year, but usually don’t find the antlers from our big guys.  Last year my husband found one of Broad Beam’s antlers.  After much searching, we were never able to find the other one.  Antlers usually don’t drop off at the same time.  So if a buck is on the move while they are loosing them, the antlers can be miles apart.

This year I noticed exactly when Broad Beams lost his antlers.  I saw him in the morning with them, and then saw him in the early evening that same day without them.  So we surmised that they must be nearby.  My husband and I set out on our late winter treasure hunt.   It didn’t take long to find both antlers.   They were only about 100 yards apart which means that he lost both of them at close to the same time and he had not covered much ground in between.   What a wonderful gift our boy has left for us this year!

It is nearly impossible for me to convey my amazement in nature with mere words.  Just when I think I’ve seen about anything a person could see, a new miracle comes along and shows me how little I really know…

Two winters ago while taking a break at lunch time one day, I looked out the window of  or our hearth room and noticed a strange sight.  A good sized white tail buck had wandered haplessly into view.   He emerged from the dense woods, lumbering awkwardly forward  like a strange creature from a monster movie.  His large head and shoulders lurched upward and downward in a dramatic unnatural fashion.  As he came closer, I could see blood running down his right front leg, which had been snapped at the knee and now stuck out sideways in a grotesque, demented direction.  The flesh on different parts of his body had been torn open, creating great oozing wounds.   Closer inspection of him as he came ever closer revealed a broken jaw and fractured rear leg just below the stifle.  His eyes were shockish.  He had just been hit by a car, perhaps earlier that very morning.

I didn’t know this buck until that day.   He came right up to the house as they often do and loitered around, trying to find the courage to move along on his way.  Finally he lumbered off in that jerky monstrous walk, crossed the little dead end road in front of our house, actually jumped our neighbor’s wooden fence (on three legs) and drifted off into a dense stand of cedars.  I was sure that he was doomed.  Poor fellow…

How little I know.

The unfortunate broken buck not only did return to eat the acorns under our burr oak tree, but he became a regular here that winter.  Slowly, the bloody wounds began to heal.  But the broken bones of course remained broken and healed in strange unnatural positions.  It was always easy to recognize him even from a distance.  No one else moved in such an awkward fashion.

As the warm season came, my husband and I felt certain that infection would set in and Brave Heart  (a name well earned) would not live for much longer.   Again, how little I know.  Sure enough when the next December came, Brave Heart came with it as if blown in on a cold westerly breeze.  We could hardly believe our eyes.  Once again he was a regular sight out our windows all through the winter.

Another warm season came and went.  Our deer become nearly invisible as the lush greenery fills in the woods and some of the bucks relocate for the season.   With Autumn and winter comes better visibility.  Sure enough it is December and  today on cue, like an actor showing up with script in hand for his first scene of the season, Brave Heart appeared in our woods once again.  He can hardly walk, as the right front leg has become a useless appendage that seems to be more in the way than anything else.   But here he is…our unsinkable and brave spirited man.  He looks better this year than in the past, as the heavy rains have brought abundant food.  For an animal with limited mobility, this is an important factor in their survival.

(Below) A look at Brave Heart through our living room window.  He is in good weight this year.

Injuries cause unusual antler growth, usually on the side opposite the injury.  Because Brave Heart had sustained injuries on both sides of his body, his antlers are almost freakish, with tines sticking out in all directions.   Here he enjoys the seed pods from a locust tree (we refer to them as “banana skins”).  In this photo his broken lower jaw is evident.  Because the break is in front of the back grinding teeth, he is still able to chew, which is how he has survived all this time.

Because of the massive damage to Brave Heart’s body, he is socially repressed by all of the other deer in the area.  This may force his testosterone levels to be lower than other bucks.    Each winter Brave Heart is always the first to loose his antlers.    In fact, they drop long before the other bucks, even the young ones.     Below he is ambling through the woods towards the house.   His broken front leg is obvious from this angle.

Where Brave Heart goes when the warm breezes of spring arrive is anyone’s guess.  White tail deer have a way of emerging from seemingly nowhere and then vaporizing into thin air as a mode of transit.  This simply fascinates me about them.

It is impossible not to admire such a creature for his infallible will to live.  Indeed, Brave Heart has survived through yet another year.     I’m happy to say… “HOW LITTLE I KNOW“…

Welcome back, brave fellow…

My friends hear me speak of monsters.  Some of these friends have even witnessed them for themselves.   When mature whitetail bucks float about in the darkness of our woods they seem almost bigger than life.   But even the biggest monsters come from humble beginnings…

In the autumn and winter of 2005-06 there was a young spike buck who for a reason unknown to us, attached himself to our home.  Maybe he spent his days as a spotted fawn here and had no reason to leave.  Our home was his home.  His home was our home.   Everyone involved seemed to like it that way.

There was something special about “Teenie Tines.”   I knew it from the very beginning.   Little whitetail bucks litter our woods like hickory nuts.  But I knew when I first met him that Teenie Tines was no ordinary little hickory nut.  He was a constant fixture at our fence often peeking over it to watch us in the windows as we admired his adorable little face.  He was unusually calm and tame and almost seemed to enjoy our company.  His appetite was voracious.   It seemed that Teeny Tines couldn’t consume enough to keep his fat tummy satisfied.  He gobbled down acorns like a 200 pounder.  He was the only little buck that the big bucks allowed at the fence while they too, pigged out on acorns.   Teenie was to this day the tamest deer we’ve had here.  I used to joke that I could have put a leash on him and walked him around the neighborhood.  How I adored him…

(Below) Teenie at the fence saying “Hello” one winter morning.

Whitetail bucks change a great deal from little spike tykes to the monsters that some of them later become.  But I know our deer by their faces.  This fall a HUGE buck showed up at our fence that we had not yet seen this season.  I grabbed my camera as I always do and started shooting away despite a shutter speed that was really too slow to yield much success  .  It was dusk so my camera ISO was as high as the national debt, but I took my chances and shot away.  Sometimes you get lucky.  I was hoping that this would be one of those times.

It wasn’t until I put the pictures on my computer that I recognized him…OH…MY…GOD…IT’S……….My TEENIE TINES!!!!   We hadn’t seen him since he was a little spike tyke.   That explained why as we stood so blatantly in the window and talked in normal voices he barely noticed us.  He looked at us with casual interest and then proceeded to eat every bur oak acorn he could find under that tree…just like the HUNGRY baby Teenie Tines.

(Below) Teenie Tines has aged like fine wine.  It is ironic that a little buck I once called Teenie Tines (because of his unusually tiny tines) now has some of the longest tines I’ve yet seen.   Maybe his new name should be “Titanic Tines”.

Another look (below) at our boy.  Teenie has once again become a frequent visitor here.  He comes often, stays long and casually saunters away, just like old times.   It will be interesting to see if he is big enough, and BOLD enough to hold this area against some of our other monsters.

No matter how big and impressive he gets, he will always be “Teenie” to me…

Monsters roam in our woods like phantoms in the night. They arrive without warning, stay as long as they please and then vanish into thin air.

We have grown accustomed to living with monsters. In fact we have given each one a name. We have learned over time however, that it is not a good idea for one to name their monsters…

“Broad Beams” and “Twisty Tine” were two mature whitetail bucks at the peak of their prime. We most often saw them together, first under the cover of darkness and then as their confidence in us grew, at dusk and ultimately in daylight. They haunted our woods and ruled everything in sight.

We watched these two monster bucks grow bigger and bigger each year. By the winter of 2006-07, their ultimate size had become nearly ridiculous. They were an unrivaled pair that traveled together for a very long time.

One December morning I went for a stroll in our woods. I followed the deer trails as I usually do and stopped to study an old dead tree trying to decide whether or not it would make a good background for a painting. Suddenly, movement about 20 yards away caught my eye. It was strange movement in the tall grass, frantic and flailing. Then the movement stopped. This repeated several times before I realized that a huge buck was down, lying on his side on the ground kicking his legs, trying desperately with no avail to stand. His great head and antlers would repeatedly lift up into the air and return to the earth again with a loud thump.

Being the period of rut for whitetail, I gave him a wide birth. A burst of adrenaline could create panic and cause further harm to him and maybe to me. I checked back several times that afternoon. The state of things there had not changed. As evening came I could get closer and could see the life draining from the eyes of this great monster buck. By the next morning the buck had crossed into that unknown place where we ultimately will all find ourselves.

It was my husband who first recognized him. We hadn’t seen our monster bucks since the spring before; in the summer, the woods are thick and lush and the deer are mostly hidden from view. The antlers of a whitetail buck grow back differently each year after a shed. We realized to our surprise and disappointment, that this was our beloved Mr. Twisty. His antlers were different this year, but it was indeed the face of our old friend.

(Above) Twisty in his prime, sporting his whopping 16 point antlers (one tine is hidden).  This is a post-rut photo.

Nature has a way of taking care of things. The death of one means life for others. Foxes, raccoons, bobcats, turkey vultures and coyotes were all able to reap benefit from Twisty’s demise. They all ate very well throughout that winter.

I had seen our other monster Broad Beams shortly after I found Twisty dying. Deep scars all over his face and wounds on his legs told a story. With the ladies around it apparently was finally time to decide once and for all who was going to be King. I could tell by looking at how beat up Broad Beams was, that his was not an easy victory.

(Above) Broad Beams in his prime, the old man of the forest who became the unrivaled King.

The King’s sward (above). My husband found the shed weapon of Broad Beams that likely finished off the great Mr. Twisty.

(Above) Mr.Twisty as he lives on today…the beautiful sculptural remains of a once great giant.…     FOND FAREWELL, OLD FRIEND…