A fawn deer's mother was hit by a vehicle, but the fawn jumped a fence and spent months living with Milton the bull and Betty the cow. Credit: Courtesy of Jon Slaton

As our popular trail camera photo and video series heads into a new year, you may have noticed that not all of the submissions your fellow readers have sent in have come from trail cameras. Oops.

I’ve decided to be pretty lenient about some of those pictures and videos in the interest of showing you cool outdoor images, rather than taking a hard line of “if you shot it yourself, you’re out!” That’s how we ended up with the great video of the three Canada lynx we shared last week. And that’s why we’re showing you a family unit you’ve likely never seen before in today’s photo.

I’ve come to understand that once you put out a few trail cameras, you become a little bit more interested in the comings and goings of various critters. And since we’ve all got a camera in our pockets nowadays, it’s a pretty simple step to pull out our phones when animals arrive, and start taking photos.

That’s the way it’s been working for me, at least.

Jon Slaton sent the photo in from the Missouri Ozarks, not far from Springfield, Missouri. The sticker on the window shows that the shot comes through a window.

“[The] fawn’s mother [was] hit by a car,” Slaton said. “She jumped the fence and stayed with Milton (bull) and Betty (cow) for months.”

Thanks for the hospitality, Milton and Betty. I’m sure the fawn appreciated it.

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Do you have a trail camera photo or video to share? Send it to jholyoke@bangordailynews.com and tell us “I consent to the BDN using my photo.” In order to prevent neighbors from stopping by to try to tag particularly large bucks, moose or bears, some identities and towns of origin may be omitted.

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John Holyoke has been enjoying himself in Maine's great outdoors since he was a kid. He spent 28 years working for the BDN, including 19 years as the paper's outdoors columnist or outdoors editor. While...