The Phillips family of St. Albans had a surprise in their flower garden on Observatory Road on Monday. A newborn fawn curled up at the base of a bird house and spent the night and day there until a photographer arrived.
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Steve Phillips knew something wasn’t quite right when the beautiful pink blooms that he’d seen in his garden the day before were missing.
He and his wife were walking Monday morning in the garden at their St. Albans home when they noticed the pink lilies were missing. They had been there Sunday, he said.
“I’ve always sprayed around (the flowers) with liquid fence to keep deer form getting in it, and so far it had been successful with no problems,” said Phillips of Observatory Drive. “We went out this morning and my wife said ‘We’re missing my pink lilies. They were in bloom and now they’re gone.’”
He said he walked over to the flowers and sure enough the pink blooms were gone.
“We certainly were suspicious,” Phillips said.
He said they walked a little further and found a fawn curled up near the flowers. The couple didn’t see the fawn’s mother around but thought it best to leave the fawn alone, he said.
Not that they weren’t watching out for the baby deer. He said he fawn, who looked to have been born over the weekend, at one point tried to stand and did so for a few moments before lying back down.
“She’ll be back I’m sure later on,” Phillips said of the fawn’s mother. “She might have had another baby in an area close and she might be with it, or maybe she went for food.
“I don’t think it’ll be here in the morning.”
Officials with the state Division of Natural Resources said the Phillips did the right thing in leaving the animal.
“This is the time of year when folks are coming across fawns and they think they’re doing the right thing in picking it up but what they’re doing is more harmful to the animal,” said Paul Johansen, the DNR’s assistant chief in charge of game management. “They’re doing exactly the right thing, leaving it there…
