moohswa (White-tailed Deer)
Jarrid Baldwin

What follows are recordings of student observations from kišiinkwia kiilhswa (July/August 2009) to cecaahkwa kiilhswa (April/May 2010).  Each student was asked to observe one feature (plant, tree, animal, celestial body, or weather phenomena) and its connections to other features.  In addition each student was asked to visually represent these connections by constructing a visual web.

niipinwi neehi teekwaaki (Summer and Fall)

Moohswa are much more alive during tipeehki kiilhswa. I am awake a lot of times past midnight and I often see them eating right next to the dorms and they even get close to people more so at night then during the day. Moohswa are very different when teekwahkahki starts to come. It kills all the plants that they normally eat and by then all the leaves have fallen off trees so their food supply is becoming limited. Kiilhswa supplies all the plants and trees with energy to grow. This allows moohswa to have food to eat and kiilhswa also provides warmth. As it gets deeper and deeper into winter, the trees and plants slowly begin to die and this takes away a big part of moohswa’s diet and they must find alternative sources of food.
As winter sets in I begin to see them less and less.  I’m guessing they go into a sort of hibernation or decreased activity.  Also days get shorter which gives moohswa less daylight to search for food.  I did not notice, nor do I see, many other animals and their behavior as the weather changed other than Anikwa (Grey Squirrel). I am seeing fewer of them now that its getting colder out.

Click here to see the complete web created by all the students as well as the translations for all of the words on the circle.

pipoonwi neehi miloohkami (Winter and Spring)

For moohswa this spring I have yet to see a drastic change of them coming out and being more active. It may be due to me not being very aware but from many of my midnight walks from work back to my dorm I have not seen any at all since spring kicked in.  When I went on my walk in the woods behind east quad I saw a group of nihswi (3) around 5 pm. They did not run from me when I walked past them and they ignored the runners who were running on the trails at the time.  I am curious as to why I do not notice a lot of activity from moohswa during the spring because they were very active during the fall. Maybe it takes them a while to get back into the swing of things or maybe they are just more active elsewhere and I just have not seen them yet. I began working out at the park again this past weekend and I did notice nkoti (1) running across the open field in the early morning but I figured their would be more then just one.

Due to me not seeing moohsooki hardly at all this spring, it is very difficult to connect them to another feature that the other students have been watching.  I saw no difference in the number of them I saw during the day or night, at random times I would see a few but that happened both during the day and night.  Also Bobbe mentioned that moohswa normally would eat her tulips around March and April but this year she still has a lot of them and was wondering why the deer have not been around to eat them.  She did say that she has seen a lot of them this spring which makes me wonder if they are just more active in other areas then those I frequent.