I spotted this female White-tailed Deer (Odocoileus virginianus) and several others browsing on thorny shrubs along the road to Madera Canyon in early July. The bucks have antlers in the summer and the does like this one do not.

There are two species of deer found here in southern Arizona, Mule Deer (Odocoileus hemionus) and White-tailed Deer. Unlike Mule Deer with their black-tipped tails, the tails of White-tailed Deer have no black and are instead brown above and fluffy white below.

When alarmed, a White-tailed Deer will raise its fluffy tail, revealing its white underside and looking like a waving white flag as it runs away. When fleeing, a White-tailed Deer can reach speeds of up to 40 mph (64 km/h), and these agile deer have also been able to jump 30 feet (9.1 m) horizontally and 8.5 feet (2.6 m) vertically.

My car was rocking back and forth from my three excited dogs stampeding around inside at the sight of the nearby deer, but these particular deer surprisingly remained calm and didn't run off with white tails held high in alarm. Because of my "deer mad" dogs, we unfortunately had to drive on after only getting a few photos of these calmly browsing White-tailed Deer.