Unexpected Encounters (Hardwear Sessions)

Nature finds you in unexpected places. I often hike in Wildcat Canyon, a park close to Mountain Hardwear's offices. On Sunday, I went on a solitary hike and chose an unfamiliar shortcut. The path, a deer path that arched down into a drainage basin that sometimes holds vernal pools, was overgrown. Weeds and thistles obscured the horizon. A snake crossed the path, and then, later, small brown voles scurried for cover.

In that overgrown jungle, I came across a set of deer tracks. Here and there, the grasses had been tamped down, the weeds' thick stems broken by some large creature.

I heard a rustling by the path, and the tall grass started to quake. Coyotes live in Wildcat Canyon, and I hoped it wasn't a coyote.

A pair of enormous, dark eyes peered at me.

Then the creature popped out of the grass, jumped towards me, and stopped just short of my leg. I could have reached out and touched its head.

A fawn, still young, and very small.

Another followed, all energy and quick movement. Their jumping, excitable gait reminded me of jackrabbits. About the same size as a large spaniel, but more delicate and fine-boned, the fawns appeared fragile, almost breakable. They hovered before me for a moment, surprised and uncertain, then turned and fled into the grass.

We live not far from Wildcat Canyon, and the deer are not shy. They clatter around the neighborhood at night, eating roses and other choice garden plants. Last winter, an 8-point buck made himself welcome in our overgrown back yard. But I've seldom seen fawns this young, almost newborns. I used to find them in the woods, when we lived in an area much more rural and isolated than this. Wildcat Canyon is virtually urban, surrounded on all sides by tract homes and busy roads. On a busy weekend, the park fills with hikers, bikers, joggers--it is no wilderness--and it is the last place where I would expect to have this encounter.

But there they were, a pair of young fawns, hidden away in an overgrown cow pasture minutes from a busy road.