The End

It’s not the end of In Forest and Field. Instead it’s the end of keeping a camera trap where it had been for five months because the reason to have one there is now gone. Except for some hair, all the remains of the dead white-tail doe have now been eaten or disbursed into the forest ecosystem in which she spent her life.

After the doe’s death she fed a myriad of creatures – eastern coyotes being the largest, the smallest being microscopic life forms, some of which are probably still unknown to science.

Three other posts on this blog highlighted the mammals and birds that gained sustenance from the doe’s body. First came One Dead Deer – Many Diners followed by The Deer Dinner Continues  and then Slim Pickings.

The last videos from the dead deer are here –

 

Some of the songbirds came to gather hair for their nests, some came, no doubt, to feast on the insects that had fed on the doe’s remains. Most of those insects would have been flies and beetles, but there may have been others.

On this video is the only camera trap image I’ve ever captured of a woodland jumping mouse, a rodent that few have ever seen and that spends much of the year hibernating underground. Years ago I was fortunate to be able to photograph a woodland jumping mouse –

You can never tell what may show up on a camera trap.