Shed and unshed antlers, the mystery of the calendar

Call this Unshed of the Week, if you enjoy whimsy (I do).

On March 3, Jeff Norris texted a find of big shed from the western suburbs. He had been following bucks on his trail cam and knew the day to go shed hunting.

White-tailed deer shedding their antlers typically peaks in mid-February, but it is a bell curve. Readers sent the first reports of finding sheds on Jan. 20.

Provided

Then last week, Jake Johnson sent photos of two young bucks still sporting a full set of antlers. Johnson, son of Bob Johnson, a regular contributor to the Midwest Fishing Report, spotted them on March 5 in 50-day weather near the bike trail in Brezina Woods in La Grange Park.

“It looks like one of the individuals was about to drop its antlers,” he emailed.

It’s fun to see the spread of annual events in the natural world, breeding to birthing to dropping antlers.

SOTW, the celebration of shed antlers found around Chicago outdoors, runs when worthy, either Wednesdays in the paper Sun-Times or in the special two-page outdoors section in the Sun-Times Sports Saturday. The online posting here at chicago.suntimes.com/outdoors goes up at varied days of the week, depending on what is going on in the wide world of the outdoors.

To make submissions, email (BowmanOutside@gmail.com) or contact me on Facebook (Dale Bowman), Twitter (@BowmanOutside) or Instagram (@BowmanOutside).