Fawn 150 has been wearing a malfunctioning collar for a couple of months now. I usually stand in the middle of a field and wait for the signal to return. Most of the time, all I can hear is one or two short chirps before it goes silent again. The process of walking a couple of seconds then standing and waiting can progress for 20 to 30 minutes. Finally in the blink of an eye, I see tails flitting away through the trees.
Seconds pass and the malfunctioning collar emits fainter chirps.
After 30 to 40 minutes of waiting, I finally have confirmation that the fawn is alive and moving away from me. For now, at the end of January, the 26 remaining fawns are alive and have made it through this much of the winter. It will be very interesting to watch what happens in the coming months. I hope the next month proves as interesting as this one. It has been awhile since I last wrote a dispatch for our fawn study journal.