Oh deer, oh deer, oh deer.

Each morning, just before dawn, the sound of gunfire replaces my clock alarm. Ah yes, tis the season to adore and vilify deer. It’s such a quaint American custom.  The French love their dogs all year, the Brits love their cats all year, but the Americans annually love, and hate, their deer. Who among us has not cried when Bambi lost his mother? And for how many years have we sung the praises of Rudolph’s red nose. How many times have we watched Miracle on 34^th Street, where we learned the proper placement of Santa’s reindeer. Drawings of deer grace one of the current L.L.Bean catalogues. We are charmed by the twig-and-lights reindeer on front lawns or rooftops. Nonetheless, it does not stop us from shooting them in their tracks come hunting season. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. They are a danger on the road, they eat our flowers, tear up our gardens and carry deadly diseases. It’s just that it must be so confusing for the deer. One minute the deer are revered and the next minute they are target practice. Adding to their confusion is the unfortunate timing of deer hunting season coinciding with deer mating season. From the hunters’ perspective, ‘all is fair in love and war’. From the perspective of the love starved deer’s equal desire to keep moving and stay alive, the blood really has no idea where to go.

To begin at the beginning, let’s review the timing and manner of deer hunting season.  Hunters are allowed to begin shooting ½ hour before sunrise and must end ½ hour after sundown. Everything in between is a free for all except that hunters are not allowed to shoot a swimming deer. Visions of Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland gleefully exclaiming “let’s put on a [deer] show”, whereupon Busby Berkeley would set up an Esther Williams extravaganza and use deer instead of bathing beauties, thereby saving the lives of about 3,000 deer per scene, dance before me. But I digress. Let’s return to real life.

Come mid-September, hunters begin the season the same way Robin Hood and William Tell gained fame, with a bow and arrow.  Whether a cross bow or a vertical bow is used is of no import. It’s bow and arrow time and while a deer innocently may think that Cupid has shot him through the heart, alas, that is not necessarily the case.

After a month or so the muzzleloaders kick in. Muzzleloaders, you ask -- think Daniel Boone or Davy Crockett. Remember those long rifle barrels slung on the backs of those kings of the wild frontier, and the little pouches with the black powder that was needed to fill the barrel before the rifle could be shot; yup, alive and well in the woods of Maryland.

We’ve come to the end of November and now, it’s ‘all other firearms’ time. And so the games continue, which means there’s no need for an alarm clock until December 31.

Last, for the folk who find deer hunting too pedestrian, there is falconry for smaller game, but please be aware that coots and waterfowl may not be hunted on Sundays. 

No deer were harmed in the writing of this blog.