Wandering around in the Big Woods one
morning I came upon the carcass of what had been a very nice white-tailed buck
with eight points on his antlers. There wasn’t much left of him, just bones
with some muscle and tendons attached, a few of the abdominal organs, his head
(which was almost intact) and lower legs. It wasn’t an attractive sight, but
was full of opportunities nonetheless.
After finding the deer’s remains, I looked
through last year’s collection of photos from a camera trap that hadn’t been
very far from where the buck spent his final moments. There was a photo taken
in mid-September 2015 of a buck that was most likely the same animal –
The buck had probably been shot, and not
retrieved, during deer season which ended about six weeks before I found his
remains. During that time he had fed scavengers, from bacteria to much larger
creatures, perhaps even a black bear.
While regretting that I hadn’t found the
buck earlier, this was too good an opportunity to let pass. So it didn’t take
long to return with a camera trap and set it overlooking the carcass –
In the first few days four crows repeatedly
visited to feast on the remains; they were so active that the camera captured
over 300 photographs of them in three days –
They were occasionally replaced by a red-tailed hawk that came to pick at the carcass –
They were occasionally replaced by a red-tailed hawk that came to pick at the carcass –
After a light snow and just before dusk a
coyote also visited, but apparently found the pickings rather slim as it hasn’t
returned –
The next day a doe stopped and smelled the
remains; she may be carrying fawns sired by the now dead buck -
On following days other species also came
to nibble on the remaining tissue and bones, an opossum came on several days –
And a porcupine –
The smallest species that the camera could
detect was the white-footed mouse that often ran over the carcass and was hard to see
in the photos –
A raccoon also came several times -
On one visit the raccoon spent quite a while feeding on the dead deer -
Each day the camera captured over 100
photographs of the four crows and it appeared that only four crows were feeding
there – were they the same four? Then one day there were five crows –
On one visit the raccoon spent quite a while feeding on the dead deer -
The camera trap will stay there for a while
to see what else visits the carcass. Had I found it earlier the camera would
probably have yielded more photos of the coyote, and maybe photos of a raven, fisher, black bear or bobcat and, if I had been really lucky, maybe a golden eagle. Oh well, life is full of
“what ifs”.
6 comments:
This is amazing how many critters that deer is feeding. Great thinking to put the camera overlooking the site.
Very interesting!
Wow, amazing series of images. I lot of critters were fed well. Thank you for linking up and sharing your post. Have a happy weekend!
You definitely took advantage of a sad situation. Alas, that's the cycle of nature.
Sad for the deer. But such a great opportunity to capture so many critters on your camera!
Wow, nothing got wasted,nature supplies all,phyllis
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