The deer rut

With November comes the peak of the deer rut, or mating season, in Minnesota.  Male deer (bucks) are rubbing the bark off of trees and making scrapes to mark their turf and assert their dominence.  Even on the fringes of the big woods they are active!  Below is a picture of what one rascal of a buck did to our apple tree in the yard at 10:45am and before my very eyes:

This is what is known as a "rub" when talking about deer.  Incidentally, we don't mind the rascal beating up our aspen trees, but this was a little cheeky on his part!  Below is one of this buck's many scrapes:

A "scrape" is an area of ground that the buck tears up with his hooves and then marks with his urine so that other deer who come to check out the scrape get to know about the buck.  Other deer will also mark the scrape and sniff and mouth the overhanging branch that the buck has marked with his oral scent glands (spit).  Below is a close-up of the same scrape with the tracks of the buck plainly visible:

The fact that the hoof marks are smaller and the points of the hoof sharper lets us know that this is probably a yearling buck, or last year's fawn.  When I saw the buck tearing up our apple tree, I grabbed the camera and headed out sneakily (I thought) for a picture.  The buck saw me and knew he was in trouble:

So much for being sneaky with the camera!  Oh, did I mention that I forgot to remove the lense cover and had to fiddle with that while I had my best shot at a great picture?  Groan!  Keep your eyes open for buck sign when you go out into the woods at this time of the year.  And if you are in Minnesota and go out, better wear a blaze orange vest and cap because tomorrow the hunters will be hitting the woods to try and fill their freezers.  Good luck, hunters!