It’s Only Natural

by Cindy ~ February 27, 2007

Yesterday was a banner day for Rough-legged Hawks in our area. On the way to town I spotted 5 of them, and 3 were dark-morphs (my absolute favorite). Then on the way home, we took a backtrail and found an obviously recently poached deer near home. (You can tell a poached deer when it’s been skinned and cut up- not like a roadkill that still has its’ body fur attached- and unfortunately poaching is the norm in rural areas like ours).

But the carcass will not be wasted, despite the bad taste that poaching leaves in my own mouth. It was covered in American Crows, Blue Jays, Downy & Hairy Woodpeckers, W.B. Nuthatch and before we pulled up, another beautiful Rough-legged Hawk (first time I’ve seen one on a carcass). But the most abundant species feeding from this natural ’suet’ were chickadees. I watched many territorial battles while these usually sweet birds morphed into fierce little predators.

I posted a series of similar photos on a photography forum I monitor last year, and got teased by my “killer dees that can take down a deer’. Many didn’t realize that this is a natural food source for many birds and in a short time even the bones will be gone, because there’s alot of hungry critters out there this time of year. Fox, opposum and weasel tracks showed us that quite a few animals have this carcass staked out for future meals.