Blood and Guts in My Backyard. Or, Nature Tidies Up

I’ve been writing a lot about death and dying lately. That realization came to me yesterday as I sat down to write this post. Time to write something cheerful for a change, I told myself. Give death a rest.

I could write about Christmas, of course — twinkling lights and sleigh bells. Or, how about the animals who’ve been hanging out in my backyard this week?

Three nights ago, a coyote howled outside my bedroom window. It was loud. It woke me up.

Two days later a mysterious flock of birds, huge and black and noisy, swooped in and took over my big cypress tree. I figured they were ravens.

Animals Being Animals

What could be more upbeat than animals going about their animal business, I thought? I decided to go with a warm and fuzzy animal story for today.

But — just as I was sitting down to write (my brain was still spinning with viral vertigo, just fyi) the phone rang.

It was my next door neighbor.

He was apologetic.

A half-eaten, very dead and dismembered deer was lying in my backyard.

My neighbor had called earlier in the day to tell me that he’d spotted that self-same deer in his backyard that morning. He wasn’t sure how it got there. It wasn’t moving, he said. He suspected coyotes. He was wondering what to do about it.

I suggested calling Animal Control. Or Animal Services. I did some googling, gave him some phone numbers, then hung up the phone and went out to my deck for a look.

That deer was dead. More than dead. Most of its carcass was missing.

Forget Animal Control, I thought. My neighbor would need Waste Management.

My Neighbor Had a Problem

Fortunately, the carcass was his problem, not mine, I thought. I had helped my neighbor get those phone numbers. I’d been sympathetic. I’d done my do for my neighbor and his dead deer.

But now, just as I was sitting down to write cheery thoughts of peace and joy and the triumph of the human spirit, my neighbor’s second phone call came in. This time to let me know that his problem was now my problem. The carcass had moved.

“It’s there, just behind your big tree,” he said.

“How did it get into my yard?” I wanted to know. “Could the coyotes have dragged it over here? Are they that strong?”

My neighbor was as baffled as I was. He assured me that he was not the culprit; he had not moved the deer into my backyard. He wasn’t going anywhere near that deer. Fleas. Mites. Ticks. Deer blood. Rabies.

Blood and Guts in My Backyard

I wondered, could our neighborhood coyotes have actually taken down a medium-sized deer? Yes, according to a writer for a website called MeatEater. Yes, coyotes kill fawns, states Patrick Durkin. But “no one should question the coyote’s hunting skills. They can also kill adult deer.”

City officials had taken their sweet time getting back to my neighbor, he told me. Four hours had elapsed. The deer might have been hit by a car and stumbled into his yard, they said. And, yes, the police or an animal control officer could remove what was left of the carcass. There would be a charge for that — a couple hundred dollars.

Most people just leave the carcass where it lies, he was told. And that’s OK. Once the coyotes finished with the deer carcass, the huge birds  that had shown up so mysteriously in my cypress tree-(I thought they were ravens, but now I’m thinking vultures) would take over. Insects would finish the job. Soon there would be nothing left of the gruesome mess but bones. Sanitized, picked-clean bones.

In my backyard.

There you have it. There will be no uplifting message of twinkling lights and the triumph of the human spirit today. The lion has yet to eat straw.

The  nicest thing I can say about the the world we’ve got is — nature cleans up after herself. She tidies up.

More animal stories at “I Can’t Believe I Got in the Water With That 1400-Pound Whale.”   And, “Confessions of a Carnivore. Why Eating Meat Is OK, Sorta.”

This shaky video might make you dizzy, but if you’d like to hear a couple of coyotes yipping and howling as they tear across my backyard, click away!

On this video, you’ll hear the big black birds’ croaking call.