After my family and I moved to the southeast coast of Vancouver Island, I was excited to explore our new environs and to discover all the wildlife in our midst.
We had lived on a much smaller, but magical Gulf Island where many creatures frequented our backyard daily, as it was more like a lush nature reserve for them than a barren urban lawn. Among my wildlife friends, which included a host of lively songbirds, were the families of black-tailed deer, who grazed and snoozed in a large patch of tall grass below our house. It was wonderful to see the fawns with their spotted fur, the gentle does, and the young bucks with their velvety antlers nibbling on native plants year-round. And ironically, just before we moved, one of our neighbors spotted a bull elk—the second largest living species of deer in the world—just down the road from our house. That was the second time in 30 years we had heard about an elk on Salt Spring Island.
Now, since we moved to Ladysmith, we have been lucky enough to spot local herds of Roosevelt elk in the fields next to the highway just a few minutes from our home. And one morning in mid-October, we spotted these magnificent elk, bathed in autumnal light, grazing quietly in one of their favorite spots.
