A rite of spring is the birth of hundreds of thousands of white-tailed deer in Pennsylvania with most fawn born within a week of Memorial Day, according to the Pennsylvania Game Commission.
It’s not surprising that wildlife webcams in Murrysville captured footage of what looks to be a newly born fawn grunting and whining when its mother leaves to forage.
The webcam is part of a family of nature webcams set up by PixCams located on property owned by the family of Bill Powers, founder of PixController, now CSE Corp., which installed and currently operates the live webcam of the Pittsburgh bald eagles.
At birth, an average fawn is about 7.5 pounds, the weight of a small housecat. At one month, about 23 pounds.
A fawn’s white-spotted chestnut coat looks like dapples of sunlight hitting the ground, serving as an excellent camouflage when the animal is lying down, according to the Pennsylvania Game Commission.
When fawns remain motionless – a survival strategy — their speckled coat and lack of odor help them escape detection from predators, according to PGC wildlife biologist, J.T. Fleegle.
