The day before yesterday, a roe deer walked through our garden with its fawn. Deer walking in the garden is no news, it happens often enough. But this was the first time I saw one with a newborn fawn this close.

After the two crossed most of the garden, I saw another fawn come out of the lilac hedge! Very cute.

Then they went off across the road and that was that, I thought.

Today, as I was finishing my lunch out on the deck, I suddenly noticed that one of the fawns had been lying in the tall grass under our cherry tree during my entire lunch, only 5 metres away from me. It was so quiet and immobile that I hadn’t noticed it at all until I happened to look at that exact spot.

Mama deer came by a few times in the afternoon, and I saw them in a few different places in the evening.

I mostly tried to stay out of the garden today. If I was too visible, I was afraid mama deer might not dare come back to feed the baby. And I wouldn’t want to have a fawn starve because of me.

They left in the evening, probably to move to some other garden in the neighbourhood.

Deer look cute but they are marauders when it comes to plants. No tulips would survive in this garden, and deer have repeatedly eaten my pansies in the past.

This time mama deer took big bites from my strawberry plants, right under my eyes. I normally cover the strawberries with netting but hadn’t had time to put up nets for this summer yet. I’d forgotten that the nets protect against deer as well, I was mostly thinking of them as protecting the berries from birds.

I quickly threw on the nets today, on the strawberry boxes as well as the one where we planted peas. And just in time – the pea sprouts are just becoming visible. If pea shoots are a delicacy for us humans, how much more delicious might deer find them? They would probably leave nothing behind.

I have mixed feelings about deer. I like wildlife of all kinds, and I like seeing animals in the garden. Squirrels and hares and deer, and birds of course. I wish there were hedgehogs around here.

I don’t like them eating the things I care about.

On balance, though, I’d rather have a garden without tulips than a garden without deer.