Holiday weekends can be a little slow sometimes, but Lyman Woods saw quite a few visitors today, including a white-tailed deer!
This buck was spotted grazing behind the bike rack by a pair of visitors. You can see in the photos the antlers look sort of fuzzy; male white-tailed deer shed their antlers every winter, then grow a new pair every spring. Horns, like those on bighorn sheep, are made of two layers: an inner layer of bone, covered by a "keratinized sheath" - an outer layer grown from special hair cells (similar to our fingernails!). Antlers, however, are made out of true bone. The fuzzy covering, called velvet, protects the new antlers and contains blood vessels that supply the nutrients the antlers need to grow. When the antlers stop growing, usually between August & early September, bucks will rub their antlers against trees to remove the velvet. Looking for trees where the bark has been rubbed off by antlers is a fun way to search for animal signs!
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