Awaken to find ourselves surrounded by deer (5)
I believe the answer is:
rouse
'awaken' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'ourselves surrounded by deer' is the wordplay.
'ourselves' becomes 'us'.
'surrounded by' is an insertion indicator.
'deer' becomes 'roe' (roe deer is a kind of deer**).
'us' inserted within 'roe' is 'ROUSE'.
'to find' acts as a link.
(Other definitions for rouse that I've seen before include "Bestir" , "Bumper" , "Agitate" , "Make angry" , "Cause to become awake" .)