Hey, I’m up late tonight! Good wordplay! Missing you! fg

Here is some interesting information one of my readers sent: There are a couple of points in your most recent blog with which I would take gentle issue. First, all deer (whitetail, blacktail, mule) as well as elk and moose shed their antlers every year. Second, I believe you are looking at a blacktail deer, not a whitetail. The greatest distinguishing feature, aside from the color on the top of the tail (a black top, as can be seen in your photos), is that the antlers of a blacktail buck just as the antlers of a mule-deer buck have a v-shape on each side; whereas, a whitetail buck’s antlers on each side have a single main stem from which there are small side branches. (By the way, blacktail and mule deer are “cousins”; hence, they have the same antler configuration.) Circumstantial evidence is that blacktail deer are common in the Western part of the Washington; whereas whitetail deer are typically found in the dryer forests of E. Washington (and mule deer in the more open sage/scrub range of E. Washington.)