Love Is in The Air

​The trees have put on their fall display (quite wonderful this year), and the temperatures in Upstate New York often dip to or below freezing. As we approach Halloween and the Hunter’s Moon (on the same day this year), many sports men and women have turned their thoughts toward the many hunting seasons which have already opened or soon about to.

A fresh buck rub on a young birch tree in the forests of Painted Post

The whitetail deer begin their mating season this time of year.

Bucks will fight other bucks and carve out their territory.

​One way a buck marks his territory visually is through the buck rub, as shown in these pictures.



​But these rubs also serve other purposes as well. Grand View Outdoors article ,“14 Things You Didn’t Know About Buck Rubs” provides some interesting facts about buck rubs. (Among other things, this article discusses the correlation between the size of the tree and the age of the buck--an often bandied about topic.)

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A buck just beginning to work this young hemlock--you can see the rub about one foot up from the ground.

An active buck scrape.

But rubs aren't the only way these lovesick bucks try to attract mates.
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Bucks also make “scrapes”  (as shown in this next picture) by pawing through the leaves, to leave their scent. and where doe can later also leave their scent  to let the buck know they are in the same area.

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A browse twig--where the buck has chewed this small twig to leave his scent for the purpose of attracting doe

​Sometimes, hunter might confuse a turkey scratching (as turkeys also move the leaves in search of food) for a buck rub. 

One good way to know the difference between a deer scrape and a turkey scratch is to look for the “browse twig” (in the picture to the right, this browse twig was just above the scrape in the proceeding picture). This is where the buck has chewed a twig to leave his scent, which means there will be an overhanging branch nearby the scrape.

Note: you can often make out the deer tracks in the scrape as well to help differentiate a turkey scratch from a deer scrape.

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Admittedly, this season, I was a little nervous about deer hunting prospects as I didn't see any scrapes (nor rubs), but seemingly overnight, dozens of buck rubs and scrapes appeared on our property--so the bucks got busy real fast! 

I guess you could say I was a bit fearful 2020 was going to rub me the wrong way, but I scraped by. (Yes, even I groaned at that one.)​