Bedtime

Weather and calendar-permitting I take a daily walk accompanied by my faithful Lab.  And while we're out and about we make every attempt to pay attention to evidence of the wild things from nature with whom we share our home.  For instance the evidence of the resident whitetails around here.  I find their scat everywhere. Their rubs and scrapes during the mating season.  Shed antlers this time of year.  And don't eat the yellow snow.  Lastly, I find their beds all the time when scouting in the brush - a carefully matted-down depression in the taller grasses or a hollowed-bowl melted into the snow.  I have blogged about this before.

Whitetail deer like to sleep in locations where they feel secure. Typically, where they have the wind at their back to smell danger and can see potential danger in front of them – a place that offers good cover.  A deer is quite vulnerable while they sleep if it were not for the sensitive sniffer and always swiveling ears.  Deer know what is happening around them at all times and if they smell or hear something out of place with the normal rhythms of their surroundings they will bolt and skedaddle.  In the wintertime deer prefer to bed amongst the thermal cover provided by dense stands of pines.  

Deer also prefer to bed near water and food sources.  Sometimes they sleep solo.  Sometimes they bed-down in groups.  Because they are creatures of habit if they find an optimal location it is not unusual for several return visits. 

Sleep is usually five to ten minutes in length - or as evidenced here can be longer.  Some trail camera surveillance supports the notion of up to twenty minutes of sleep.  The whitetail sleep cycle is not at all unlike that of the whitetail deer hunter – dozing-off for a few minutes and snapping to attention. 

Consider this too; bedded deer might not be dozing at all.  They might just be hanging out for a siesta to chewing their cud.

The video cam recently recorded a series of short, silent, 15 second video vignettes of a whitetail doe who laid down, made herself comfortable, hung out for 60+ minutes and eventual got up to move along.  Without boring you with countless 15 second video records of a deer chewing her cud - here are the opening and closing segments....