A deer balances on its hind legs to eat crabapples from a tree on San Ildefonso Road. Photo by Kei Davis

By KEI DAVIS
Los Alamos

I’ve lived in the same house, here in Los Alamos, for over 20 years. Plant life on the property has changed, but one of only a few constants is the crabapple tree. (One neighbor says it’s not a true crabapple, but whatever it is, it’s common around Los Alamos, notably in the western area.)

For the first 10+ years that I lived here, the crabapples were mostly a mess, serving only as food for mice and gophers, and to irritate me, both in the mess they’d make, and as an attractant for the aforementioned undesirable rodents. Over the last five or so years, as our local deer become ever-more overpopulated, starving, and unhealthy, their regard for these crabapples has evolved. 

In brief summary:

First, they started rooting for them, pig-like, often through a layer of snow, in late winter.

In the latter years, they’d thoroughly vacuum them up each day as they fell in the fall.

And now, something new. In the photos included here, the deer is not jumping or leaping, rather performing two of a series of slow, controlled transitionings from standing on four legs to sustained balancing on two, to harvest the crabapples, which have this year not yet started to fall. I have never before seen anything like this.

Another view of a deer stretching tall to eat crabapples on San Ildefonso Road. Photo by Kei Davis