Nature’s Hierarchy

I was at work last week, painting 2 doors for a long time customer, and when I was finished for the day, we got to chatting a little bit. He is someone, a lot like me but 30ish years older, who is overly generous with his time and will willingly pull up a chair and chat about anything. The other day I forget exactly what we were talking about, but he brought up a unique incident involving deer that occurred at his house some years ago. He prefaced his story with, “If my wife hadn’t been there watching it with me, I wouldn’t have thought it was real.” And then he launched into it. So the story goes, him and his wife were sitting in the dining room of their early 1900’s house sitting on top of a gentle knoll surrounded by trees with a long driveway extending to the road. Outside their dining room window is a garden which on the outskirts, has a few ancient apple trees that, despite their age and height, still bear some fruit. It was fall and the apples, fully ripened, had begun to release their hold from the branches and litter the ground around them. This day, as they looked at the window, they saw an antlered buck walk into the grassy area with the apples. Then another buck walked in. And another and another until their were 12 bucks standing around in their yard. As they watched in awe, never having seen that many bucks congregate in their yard before, the last and largest buck of the group sauntered into the clearing from the brush filled tree line. It had the largest rack and and the swagger that accompanies one in his position. Without hesitation, he walked right into the middle of the group of bucks and started eating the fallen apples.

This sight alone would be one to remember for a lifetime, but my friend and customer wasn’t done with the story. As the largest buck kept on eating, the rest standing around watching, the youngest of them all, a button buck with 2 little nubs where antlers would one day grow, came tentatively towards the largest one and meekly started nibbling on apples. Not long after this daring feat, a middling buck, slightly smaller than the largest, came up to the button buck and started pushing him away, stopping him from eating and giving the larger buck more space. Well, the largest buck stopped eating when he saw this, approached the middling one and rammed him gently with his antlers to show his disapproval. After having pushed the middling away, he then went up to the button buck and with his nose, nudged him back towards the apples and in essence gave him his approval to begin eating again. So the button buck resumed eating along with the largest of them, while still, the others stood there and watched. The largest buck displayed his dominance and his ability to dictate who got to eat and that he alone would give that approval.

I had never heard of something like this happening before with deer, almost all aspects of the story, but it doesn’t surprise me. I have seen a lot of unique deer behavior over the years both as a hiker and a hunter. I would have personally loved to see the social hierarchy displayed amongst deer like that, but hearing that story is enough. It amazes me, and humbles me as well, to see and hear about nature, animals in particular acting in those types of ways. To see the pecking order, how they communicate, and how they all react to each other is pretty amazing. Often times, if you sit still enough, the deer will carry on what they are doing as long as they don’t perceive a threat. To watch them is to see nature as it was hundreds of years ago before the houses were built and humans crowded them out of their natural environment. And while I didn’t get to witness that display from the deer firsthand, I can picture it happening. How often do we get out into nature and witness animals in action? When I’m hiking in the mornings, I get to see a ton of wildlife and often times, with deer especially, I’ll stop and watch them interact and move through the woods. Sometimes they will simply stop and watch me for minutes on end. Other times, if I’m far enough away, they will carry on foraging through the woods, munching on acorns, the young often frolicking and chasing each other in circles. There is something humbling about watching them, knowing that they have their own set of social mores, an hierarchy enforced amongst themselves, amongst their own clan. Its also amazing to see them watch out for each other, to warn each other of danger, to listen and watch out for each other’s back. Yet, if we don’t get out into nature, we won’t get to witness these types of displays. If you want to witness more, you have to get out more. That’s just one more reason why I get into the woods every day.