A week ago our aspen forest was a zillion bare, white sticks. Today it is leafing out and, right on time, the deer have made an appearance.
I suspect the deer come for the fresh, new leaves, but the fact the forest now provides cover that was absent a week ago could also be a factor. The other DrC has posted a photo she took today in our backyard, I've reproduced it below.
.We've left the forest mostly as we found it so the deer are welcome to snack and hang out. We don't put out food for them, what grows naturally is what they are accustomed to. It won't hurt them, they don't hurt it.
The yard will be beautiful for the next five months, then it's back to white sticks, dead leaves, and snow for seven months. When that time rolls around, we head south.
Postscript: Did you know that all of the aspens in that forest above are all part of one gigantic organism? Yep, all the aspen trees in a forest are parts of one enormous plant, Wikipedia writes:
The largest organism in the world, according to mass, is the aspen tree whose colonies of clones can grow up to 8 kilometres (5 mi) long. The largest such colony is Pando, in the Fishlake National Forest in Utah.
