skittish youngsters in the yard

[Cαscαdian]

My shutter speed was a bit too slow for these teens as they dashed from site to site before watching for my next move.
I've never seen one quite so dark as the one in the lead.

fairly deep crop from α7r.ii and 28-70oss.

 

[MrFotoFool]

Since you are from Washington, I assume these are black-tailed deer? (Here in the southwest we call the same species mule deer). When I stayed in Point Reyes Station a few years ago we had a small group of deer in the yard and one adult was dark like this. I have never seen a dark morph down here in Arizona (or southern California), so it may be a northwest coast thing?

 

[Cαscαdian]

Down-river from us here is a refuge for White-tailed deer, but I've forgotten the distinction between them. Must check on that.
Wiki

 

[MrFotoFool]

Blacktails and Mules are different. Arizona has both, but they're easy to tell apart. Mules are lot bigger and bulkier. 300+ pounds versus 200.

Blacktail deer and mule deer are two different subspecies of the same species: Odocoileus hemionus. Unless by "different" you mean subspecies, in which case you may be correct. Although taxonomists debate and change categories constantly, the range map I just looked up lists Rocky Mountain mule deer in northern Arizona and Desert mule deer in central and southern Arizona. The Rocky Mountain race is presumably "bigger and bulkier" but the smaller Desert race is also referred to as mule deer and I am virtually certain no one in Arizona calls any of them black-tailed deer.

 

[Cαscαdian]

Holy cow -er, calf!
My brother chimed in: these are elk calves! I thought the facial profile was a bit unusual compared to the many fawns that have visited our yard over the years. I saw online that if your spotted 'fawn' is waist high, it's an elk. How cool!