Outdoor Life: Create a deer habitat

I’ve always been a wildlife watcher. In fact, it could be argued that most of the time I spend hunting from a tree stand is bird watching. I am pleasantly distracted by anything that moves or makes a noise, whether it be a warbler flitting about in the branches above me or a raccoon skulking around looking for acorns below me; however, this past deer season I tried something a little different: I paid close attention to every deer I saw feeding.

I’m not talking about deer eating in food plots (I rarely hunt them) but those browsing in or near cutovers, edges of old fields or roadsides. I was not particularly interested in watching them eat, but in what they were eating. Often I made notes on where to look when I got down from my stand.