This story was originally published in November 2021.
Rose and Mark Clowes spend a fair amount of time in the woods near their home in Sidney.
Those forays are usually uneventful in terms of wildlife sightings.
However, they have been amazed by the animal activity going on there during the nighttime hours.
“We’re often in the woods during the day but rarely see any animals other than birds and squirrels,” Rose Clowes said.
Once the sun goes down, they rely on trail cameras to provide some insight into the neighborhood.
“My husband and I have two trail cams, both set to record video only,” Clowes said. “We find that videos often tell an interesting story about just what our backyard critters are doing.”
The Clowes got a look at some interesting white-tailed deer behavior that is shown in today’s trail camera video submission.
It shows a doe, raised up on its hind legs, aggressively flailing its front legs in the direction of another female deer — while a small buck looks on.
“This is a dominance display and a kind of ridiculous looking one in this case,” said Nathan Bieber, deer biologist for the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife. “Usually they don’t actually hit each other, but sometimes they will.”
Clowes said a friend jokingly suggested the video might be a sighting of the rare and elusive “Sidney kangaroo deer.”
“It’s amazing that deer, fishers, raccoons, coyotes, foxes and bobcats are roaming around just a short distance from our house,” Clowes said.
“Until we got the trail cams, we never knew how much action is going on in our backyard woods while we’re sleeping!” she added.
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