The Strange Case Of The Vanishing Squirrel Carcass
Fair Warning: while this post is definitely rated "G", for those of you who do not care for squirrels or carcasses, you may want to skip this.
Friday morning, when I left the house to go food shopping, I noticed that an unfortunate squirrel had been hit by a car. Right in front of my house. And, even worse, the unfortunate squirrel has a visitor - a vulture. Eww. I won't go into details here - I'm sure you can fill them in just fine, thank you. Anyhoo, I hop in my car and go food shopping. Two hours later, when I get home, no squirrel, no vulture. Start dragging bags in the house, and Eric, who's home for lunch, informs me that the vulture and squirrel were on the driveway when he came home. Eww again. Well, there were no squirrels OR vultures on the driveway when I came home, so I assumed that the vulture had taken its prize and left. After dark, Chris comes home, and I tell him the story. Next morning he leaves to run errands, is gone for a while, and comes back later, very annoyed. Tells me that the squirrel is indeed there, having spent the night under his car, and not in good shape at all. Eric and I are very confused at this point - we are 100% certain there was no squirrel carcass ANYWHERE on the driveway by late afternoon of the previous day. So, how did it get back there? As dark falls, Chris goes out with a shovel to clean up the mess. (He didn't want to deal with it in daylight, not that I blame him.) Can you see where I'm going with this? If you read the title to this post, you can. NO SQUIRREL!! No squirrel parts, not even a bit of fur or whatever to show there was a carcass there. Nada. Zip. Zilch. Nothing. Nothing at all. I have no idea what was going on, or if maybe we aren't losing our collective minds.
This particular feeder is filled with nuts, raisins, blueberries, and cherry pieces. It's surrounded by a steel cage. While the squirrels can't get into it, they still try. It's a wonder any of them have any teeth left.
And, a little teaser for tomorrow's post. Can you guess what this is? Hint: I have no willpower.
posted by Linda @ 4:00 PM
1 comments
1 Comments:
Hi Linda,
Your squirrel story was an interesting one. Is hard to figure, isn't it? Vultures don't typically fly off with carcasses, though. Their feet aren't designed for it. My guess is the squirrel was moved around by some animal that was just playing with it, instead of eating it. Dog, maybe. Fox or cat would probably have eaten at least part of it. Got a suggestion for you, though. Something like this ever happens again, you can dump some flour around the carcass. That way you'll be able to see the tracks that whatever was moving the squirrel around left behind. Unless it was a practical joke-playing person.
Anyway, have fun with your knitting and animal and bird watching endeavors.
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