So, last night I was up late working on my thesis. Sometimes when I am up late I just crash on the couch or floor in the sun room where I have setup my office. Last night was one of those nights. I am sound asleep when I am awoken by the security light coming on outside the sliding door to the sun room. In the shadows of the light I see a big six-point buck with a spread of 16-18 inches inches. (The span of the rack was a good three, maybe four, feet.) He was tall, as well: easily four feet at the shoulder. I remember making a mental note to tell my Mom I saw a buck and go back to sleep.
The next day (today) I almost forgot to tell my Mom about the buck but
I remember and tell her just before she heads out for the day. In the morning I putter around the house doing laundry, the dishes, folding clothes, and a little school-work. In the afternoon I decide to mow the lawn one last time and do some yard-work. I get a vivid reminder of seeing last night’s buck when I see my Mom’s Japanese Maple tree. The buck scraped his antlers on the trunk and tore off over a foot of bark—the tree is less than six feet tall—and ripped/chewed off two branches with a third branch left barely attached to the tree.
Check out the pics below to see some of the damage. My solution to protect the tree was to put up inter-locking white plastic fencing around it so only the top set of branches is exposed. Unless we get some mutant monster deer the tree should be safe now. But check out the damage; he tore off bark all the way around the trunk in one spot and he wore down the bark into the pulp bare wood in some other spots.
Buck-Damaged Tree - Branches in the lower right were torn off by the buck
Buck-Damaged Tree - Look how much of the bark he scraped off
