Its good to hear from you and how things are looking by the lake Nature Mama. Like you said lets hope I doesn't get to crazy while things coming around.
We're still getting wintery nights here, but its melting off in the morning for bright sunny days. The crows have been flocking a week or more, and now robins and red winged black birds are joining them. Yesterday I noticed one or two daffodil trying for it to. They aren't looking so hot, but still have some green. I also noticed some tiny buds starting on the lilac. We don't really expect to see any of that for another month or so.
I figure what we should see here if this is early spring is that after the next week or so the snow should be isolated events. Then hard frost should become less frequent for about two weeks. Then around the last week or two of April we should be left with thawed ground and just watching for a stray killing frost. Agriculturally speaking that would put us about a month early. Guess we will see.
Something else I'm curiously looking for are significant spells of drought this summer. Last year as I said was terribly wet. Winter gave significant snow, but a rather shallow frost line and uncharacteristic surface ice. Seems to me that could add up to winter not providing as much ground water as we expect. While making a wet year in the foot hills. I figure it will be up to if the rain can make up the difference. I'll be interested in seeing if it does and maybe should take a look at my irrigation.
Now those are some good thoughts and points to bring to light about the deer. First to the deer in your yard. Yep, I figure your little deer could be still small from last year, maybe a late birth. Also, could be an early birth if it was small enough. If early it was apparently viable. Meaning to say the doe was able to get the nourishment to grow and feed it. Meaning more vegetation through the winter, or more food stored from fall. I figure in your shoes I might be looking more at them grouping up. That's not strange on the face of it, but if you haven't seen it in your yard before than its new. To me new and odd behavior or events is a great place to be looking for significance, or at least to ask why now.
That sort of leads into what you said about uncharacteristic breeding habits. I think you had great thoughts and perspective there. I really had to read it a few times and mill it around to respond in a way I hope is reasonable. So let me be clear that I'm trying to add a perspective to your statement not disparage it in and way.
I find the perspective of your statement very scientific, in its assessment of cause and effect. In science at least for the most part we have to look at previous or seemingly current events as the guiding factor of behavior. That's one of the things that makes it so useful. So it tells us things like the weather patterns an animal is in or was in have determined how it is behaving now. I don't think we should find ourselves at odds with that as a rule. After all we are all operating in and looking at the same world.
However, when we start adding witchcraft, mysticism, divination, and what have you, to this it starts to broaden things. We can start to look at say the energy in an area, spiritual activity, individual thoughts of an animal, or even the relationship between say the night sky as factors. While they must be absent from a scientific analysis. For instance we might say we have intimate knowledge of the way one dog thinks compared to another. Could be a more relevant example to say sometimes the deer are proactive because of what they know or think is going to happen. The scientific approach must ignore these things because they're not available to any given observer. It also means we can look closer at outliers and odd behavior. While science needs to stick to the typical and expected.
With that in mind the question about the off season births in deer might be. Is it do to the stresses they have been under or preparation for whats to come? At the moment I would have to say one way or the other could be true, or even a mix. I hope through observation or gaining an intimate knowledge of the animal we may find out. Although that stays second for me to, what does it mean is going to happen? I figure they're entitled to their secrets. I'm more interested in what they are telling me.
Okay rereading that I think I may have been over explaining myself. So, let me say I was just trying to be clear, not schooling anyone. If anything that was the other way round. I think my perspective may've been straying to far the there way. I appreciate you helping to level it a bit.