Deer Season

In western Mass, deer season starts Monday with a bang, or two, or three. As our area has gone from mostly milk farms to gentrified second and third homes tucked into returning forests, white-tail deer now outnumber the human inhabitants. The deer show a strong preference for local floral and vegetable gardens, and sapling buds, and they will browse almost any leafy green thing lower than six or eight feet above the ground. Where populations are high, the trees at the borders of fields often look as if they have been trimmed.
Many local towns now limit hunting to property owners, and each year fewer hunt. Fortunately, the bounty of deer has attracted coyotes and mountain lion, which help to cull the deer population. A walk in the woods at spring time can kick up the picked-clean remains of a winter kill, like this deer skull, which was chewed on by some big-toothed predator, as the bone edges where the nose once was shows.
Judging from conversations around Thanksgiving dinner table yesterday, few hunters will be disappointed this year.