The Story
A mule deer stands sunk to the chest in a Colorado backyard, ears flared wide, snow collecting on its crown. Four feet fell overnight in the March 2024 storm, and the yard behind it is all white mounds and a snow-capped red shed.
Those ears settle the identification. On a mule deer they run about three-fourths the length of the head, and the species takes its name from them. Here they stand out dark against falling snow, turned square at the lens. A second deer is half swallowed by the drift behind it.
Snow this deep changes the arithmetic of winter. Mule deer lean heavily on browse from shrubs and twigs in the cold months, and in this yard everything low is buried. Long, snowy winters drain the fat an adult carries, and slogging through belly-deep snowpack month after month can starve fawns that lack those reserves. In harsh winters deer fall back on nipping lichen from rock faces or chewing bark off trees.
There is a human line in that budget too. Human disturbance can stress a deer into spending energy it does not need to, which may raise winter mortality. The front deer stands a few strides from the lens.
The front deer shows no antlers, which says little this late in the year, since bucks drop theirs late each winter and start growing new ones in spring. One of the deer may be a young one. If so, it was likely born last summer, when births peak from mid-June to early July, and fawns usually stay with the doe for their first full year.
Colorado sits in the Rocky Mountain region, where mule deer are especially at home. Many herds move from high summer ranges down to lower winter ranges, and in Oregon they often travel far to escape or limit snow cover. In March 2024 it came to this yard anyway.
