Deer (Odocoileus virginianus) were moving Tuesday morning, and Violet the Dog and I spotted two groups of three or four, and when we were about to finish our walk, we spotted another on the hillside above. We saw it at about the same time, and Violet raced toward it, and I pulled out my phone and started shooting video.
We’ve all seen deer bounding away, with all four feet leaving the ground simultaneously, like the deer above, making themselves more visible. Biologists call the behavior stotting or pronking/pronging and believe it is an adaptation that mutually benefits both predator and prey. It’s called an “honest signal” to predators that the deer would be difficult to catch and saves both predators and prey the energy that it would take for an unproductive chase.
Stot is a common Scots and Northern English verb meaning "bounce" or "walk with a bounce." Uses in this sense include stotting a ball off a wall and rain stotting off a pavement. Pronking comes from the Afrikaans verb pronk, which means "show off" or "strut" and is a cognate of the English verb "prance."
The white tails on deer, and similarly with rabbits, likely serve a similar function, as well as possibly confusing predators.
Below is a minute of audio from the pond. The frogs were so noisy I could hardly hear the birds. Cows at a nearby farm were bellowing at the end. I wonder what they were up to and always wish I could speak cow.
Here are the birds we heard by the creek above.
And the Mayapples are in bloom!
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