Contrary to what some might think, whitetails are not difficult to understand. They have basic needs that center around food, water, cover and their physiology. How deer move within their core areas depends largely on pressure from predators (man and animal); their food’s proximity to bedding cover; their environment (weather, temperature, etc.) and their physiology.
Unlike humans, deer have no timetable that governs when they move. Whitetails move when they know it is safe, feed when their body craves fuel and procreate when the time is right. Consequently, if food is a considerable distance from bedding cover, predation alters when they move. Or, if the adult-doe-to-antlered-buck ratio is out of balance, movement patterns might be altered in varying degrees.
There’s no such thing as “one size fits all” when it comes to deer movement. However, all things considered, there are certain times during the day when whitetails are most active.
Anyone who has ever raised whitetails knows that deer have four to six feeding periods per day. Unlike humans, whitetails are ruminants, meaning they have a four-compartment stomach to process the food they eat. A deer usually eats rapidly until its stomach’s first chamber (the rumen) is full. The deer then moves to a safe bedding location to begin digestion.
Because a deer’s rumen is relatively small (compared to a human’s stomach), four to six feeding times a day are required to get the nutrition it needs. Outside of the rut, food is the driving force that causes deer to move throughout the day. Hunters who understand the whitetail’s feeding behavior have an edge when it comes to predicting when and where a deer will be at any given time. Of course, every time a deer gets up to move around, it runs the risk of a predation encounter. This is where the human element comes into play.
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The fact that whitetails go nocturnal doesn’t affect hunters who prefer to drive deer, but it wreaks havoc for stand hunters, who represent a growing segment of the county’s hunting population. Since 1991, quality deer management movement has gained momentum in North America. With more land being placed off-limits to deer drives and ATV traffic, the amount of daylight deer activity and observed behavior is increasing.
Studies on the QDM lands reveal that nearly 58 percent of deer activity occurs in daylight during the rut. On non-QDM lands, where human activity is moderate to heavy, only 32 percent of deer activity occurred during daylight. This goes to show the impact that predators (in this case, humans) have on deer movement. These observations confirm what serious hunters already knew: A whitetail’s tendency to move during daylight is tied directly to human activity.
The greatest movement during the rut occurs around 7:45 a.m. This will vary up to a half-hour either side of 7:45 a.m., depending where a person is located in a time zone (Steuben County is near the center of the Eastern time zone). The second-greatest deer movement during the rut occurs near nightfall, when deer gravitate toward feeding areas.
As many seasoned deer hunters might have guessed, another spike in deer movement takes place at midday, but it’s not as great as at day’s end. Once nightfall arrives, deer have a tendency to be active until midnight. It might surprise some, but our data show that the least amount of deer activity occurs between midnight and 4 a.m.
Four primary factors determine why and when whitetails move.
1. Dependence on food.
2. Weather/air temperature.
3. Predator activity.
4. Rutting influence.
The first three are year-round, with the rut being a seasonal influence. Of course, other less-significant factors cause deer to move, but these are the major ones. Because deer must feed four to six times during a 24-hour period, they will be up and down throughout the day. After looking at non-predator-driven movements for the last 10 years, some researchers believe that the midnight to 4 a.m. period is a result of extensive feeding before to midnight. The researchers logged a lot of late-night hours to see if deer are on their feet feeding when the full moon arrives in November. This monitoring has shown that in spite of full moonlight, deer are mostly bedded from midnight to 4 a.m.
After bedding during that four-hour period, nearly all does begin to feed as daylight approaches. Bucks also begin feeding around the same time, but due to the rut’s influence, bucks cruise more than they feed and continue until they take a mid-morning siesta. By 9 a.m., most does have fed and are now bedded. Because of doe behavior, many bucks follow suit and take a break from their dawn activity. Increased temperature also has an influence in forcing a bedding respite. However, by the time midday arrives, it’s time for does to think of feeding again, so many get up and move. This causes bucks to move as well. By 1 p.m., with feeding concluded and the temperature rising, bedding behavior returns. Then, after two hours of cud chewing, with nightfall approaching, bucks and does begin moving and feeding once again. In areas of high human activity, midday deer activity can be nonexistent.
Consequently, when late afternoon arrives, deer are champing at the bit to get to their favorite food source. They simply must eat after bedding for most of the daytime hours. Once nightfall arrives, the landscape is void of human sounds and movement. Deer know they are safe to move about and feed heavily until they’re full. After six hours of feeding, they are ready to bed around midnight. The 24-hour cycle of four to six feeding periods is now complete.
Warm temperatures significantly influence deer movement. Our studies have shown that when November’s air temperature rises above 45 degrees, deer activity slows down. When air temperatures rise higher than that, deer activity comes to a crawl and sometimes halts altogether. An interesting aspect of observations is there is virtually no deviation between deer movement inside whitetail enclosures and the free-ranging deer on the adjoining properties.
As might be expected, there’s variation between these two locales and the other nearby study areas. Once moderate to high amounts of human activity are present, deer behavior shuts down during the daytime hours. Although all daylight periods see decreased deer activity, the biggest decrease occurs at midday. There’s a slight variation in deer activity during autumn’s non-rutting months. The movement deviations from the rutting months are primarily related to warm temperatures, which occur often in western New York during October.
As a result, there’s far less midday activity than when the rut is full-blown. However, we’ve seen dramatic spikes in activity when a storm front is coming or going, or if temperatures plunge below seasonal norms.
Many whitetail experts have looked extremely hard at the theory that deer are more active and feed more often when the moon is overhead or “underfoot.” Some used to be big believers in this theory, and many say a part of them still doesn’t want to believe the data. The bottom line is that motion-sensing cameras do not show that deer move and feed more due to certain moon positions. If this were the case, there would certainly have been correlations/spikes in the data. However, the data show no connection whatsoever.
So, for those of you who live and die with the moon overhead/underfoot theory, perhaps there’s something we’re overlooking concerning this popularly held belief that we will discover in the next five years. Time will tell.
— This column is a tribute to the late Charles J. Alsheimer, D&DH’s pioneering field editor of deer behavior and rut-hunting tactics.