This particular background was photographed just a few miles west of the Ankeny High School and just north of Westwood Elementary. As with much of the land around Des Moines, it is now a developed residential area.

The scene is a snow covered soybean field after fall harvest. Early morning sunlight filters through the trees catching several whitetail at the field’s edge. A yearling doe in the foreground and a fawn approach cautiously with tails raised, signaling potential danger. Young deer especially can be very curious and approach an object that appears out of place for a closer look or circle down wind for a scent check. Movement under these conditions by a human observer frequently results in a good rear end view of rapidly departing deer.

A mature doe grooms herself nearby, while in the background, a mature buck checks the licking branch hanging over a scrape. Scrapes are pawed areas made by deer as the fall breeding season approaches. Those along field edges are most often checked by big bucks under the cover of darkness. Whitetail seem to take great pleasure in leaving scent from glands on the forehead and in front of the eye on overhanging branches and also in smelling the branch to discover what information has been left by previous visitors.