Well, I've been trying to come to grips with my losses this weekend.

In the past the deer come once around now.... this one ate my Turks' cap wild lilies too. I think she brings her fawn to show her what to eat. They didn't eat everything...just nibbled and browsed and wrecked things but didn't kill them outright.

When we had our street repaved, it was a huge long project the city did-- fixing our water and sewer pipes etc. For a while the street was just sand. And we saw the two sets of hoof prints in that sand one day.

We are a busy noisy city, but our little spot is a woodsy oasis in the middle of it. There is plenty to eat here because there are few deer and lots of plantings and woods etc to support a few.
So I don't think these were eaten out of hunger, but learning. It is just a feeling I have.

The winter was so long and the spring delayed, and I had a hard time doing the seedlings this season... physically painful all that standing and transplanting etc. Carrying them back into the house during the cold nights etc. It is just very painful to lose them.

Fawns are born without scent. So this mother doe had only visual cues to identify the rescue fawn. That may have helped.
Also deer tend to form female dominated groups during breeding and raising the fawns... so there might be an Auntie gene in the does to accept fawns from other females in emergencies. The Merganser water birds upNorth do this, combine chicks into large groups if mothers are taken by eagles. (I saw this happen once myself-- the chicks orphaned and then appearing in other groups within the week). I could tell because the groups they joined had older chicks in them.

This photo is of the orphaned chicks... I watched the eagle try to take the mother (8am), for over 1/2 hr...it was awful...so I went inside. When I next came out the chicks were close to our dock and waiting for her to come back. Around 3pm they left the safety of the rock by me, and went off to fish for minnows.
They did find a new combined family situation but it took almost a week.

In any case, life goes on.... whether we like it or not.