As more and more signs of spring present themselves, the deer sightings in the backyard become more frequent.
That’s good news for Will, my two-and-a-half year old son. He loves seeing deer. There are many days he wakes up and the first thing he want to do is look for deer in the yard. His first words are: “Deers? Daddy, there deers?”
“Well, let’s go see?” I say, and start to rush to the window. I slow down and let him get there first. Usually there are no deer, but once every week or two, there are deer — usually three of four of them. Sometimes the deer are close, often as close as a few dozen yards away from the window.
One day we rushed to the window and I didn’t see any deer. Will said, “Deer!” and pointed into the woods.
I called over Andrew (my eagle-eyed five year old) and he didn’t see anything either.
“Deer!” Will insisted.
“I don’t see deer, Will. They’ll be back, don’t worry,” I said, setting the stage for me to be shown up by a two year old.
“Hey, there are deer out there. Good job, Will,” Andrew said excitedly.
Their daddy, the so-called expert, still didn’t see them. Finally I saw a tail flick in the woods hundreds of yards away. As I focused on the spot, there were at least four deer out there.
I was proud of my little guy for spotting the deer. I was even more proud of him for sticking to his guns and not second-guessing himself as Andrew and I tried to convince him that there were no deer in the woods.
Will’s interest in deer took us to the very top of a hill the other day. We were visiting my in-laws in Bedford, N.Y., where there is no shortage of deer. My in-laws’ heavily wooded lot slopes up a steep hill and continues up, up, up before finally leveling off at a field.
“Wanna check for deer, Will?” I asked him. The answer was obvious.
We started climbing the steps up the slope. The steps end at a small landing about a quarter of the way up the hill. As we approached the landing, eight deer stood up and looked at us. They were no more than 20 yards away and didn’t flee. Will’s face lit up as he alternated looking at me and deer.
The deer slowly made their way up the hill and disappeared on the other side.
“Let’s go see deer, daddy. Come on,” Will said with a look on his face that left me no choice but to hold his hand and help him up the remainder of the hill. The steps, by the way, end at that first landing. I knew the deer would not be waiting for us at the top of the hill, but Will wasn’t going to be convinced otherwise.
So we slowly made our way up the hill. I pointed out several piles of deer scat to Will. He was interested until the scat got so prevalent we had to watch where we were stepping. Of course, the deer were long gone, but it was a fun little journey up the hill with Will.
During another recent walk at a southern New England park, Will and I didn’t see any deer, but we did see plenty of deer ticks. I pulled four ticks off my pants and two off of Will’s pants during a relatively short walk.
So I’ll use this opportunity to throw in one of my occasional warnings about deer ticks and Lyme disease. Check your pants often during a walk and check yourself thoroughly when you get home. If that recent walk through Selleck’s Woods is any indication, it could be a bad year for deer ticks.
Will’s love of deer seems to have sparked an interest in nature as a whole. He is pointing out more birds and asking to go outside more and more.
Andrew has long been interested in nature and being outside. Now it appears his little brother has caught the nature bug, too. Daddy couldn’t be happier about that.

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