When Death Comes Knocking

 We returned from shooting in AZ for a week to 5-6 inches of snow on the ground. It was dark when we pulled in. The next morning I filled the bird feeders and did some other home chores before picking up Maggie at The Palace not noticing anything out of sorts. Around 10:00 we were back with Maggie and Sharon and her were out in what we call the Back 9. I was in the office dealing with stuff when Sharon burst in very excitedly saying, “There’s a dead buck in the yard!!!” (Not a good thing for her to find, she’s attached to all our deer). Now partially uncovered in the melting snow, I went out to inspect it. There were a ton of “dog” tracks around the carcass which had died about ten feet from where it now laid. We had a deer killed our first year at The Ranch up in the raven that brought in Bald Eagles and it is not uncommon where we are in the Sapphires as one of our neighbors said, “Your turn.” This buck though, 3 tines on one side, 4 on the other was literally easily in sight of our morning room, we could see it from the breakfast table! Nearly totally consumed, its death had happened within the last couple of days prior to our coming home with the Coyotes present the night we got back. All of this brought up the big question, what to do with it?

With temps hovering around the 20s, there is no smell or flies which if summer would be a major issue. There are a number of ways to dispose of carcasses here in MT. But one of the things I’ve always wanted to do was stake out a carcass and witness the process of it disappearing. I’ve been able to do it twice for just a day in Yellowstone but that is not long term, and it was not up close and personal. So me being me, and to absolutely no surprise to any of my neighbors, I put up a hide, stepped inside, and spent over a week (and still at it) watching the process unfold. (Photo of view from inside the hide below.) What unfolded and who showed up I was not prepared for!

I was so excited by the prospects, that my mind went to mush. I have a permanent hide set up already and moving it wasn’t an option. It had my only hide chair. I needed a solution fast but it took Sharon to come up with it. “What about the kit fox hide” she said. I totally forgot about it and my kit fox chair and within a few minutes, I was in business. Keeping in mind the MFD of the Z600f4 TC I set up the hide so I had front lighting around the noon time when I thought I would be shooting. With warm shoes, jacket, and gloves (so white hands can’t be seen looking into the window) I got in the hide, zipped the door, and waited.

The Black-billed Magpies were back on the carcass fifteen or so minutes after I was tucked in. The Coyotes had cleaned out the chest cavity pretty thoroughly. The Short-tailed Weasel, known as an Ermine in the winter had been coming and going so now it was time for the Magpies to go to work. I had been in the blind for about an hour when I heard a sound to my right, I looked in time to see a Golden Eagle on a glide path going right between the hide and the carcass and looking right at me, eye to eye, as it glided by! A Golden Eagle (new bird for The Ranch)! How it found the carcass is still a mystery but it wasn’t its first no last time to the carcass. I’d spend a couple of hours in the hide per session and by the end of the first day, had gotten some nice images but not the one I really wanted.

By the next day, all the snow had melted and the activity had slowed down a bit. Carcass was getting pretty bare. Again, I was in the hide for an hour and here flew past the Golden Eagle again. The next day, it had snowed a little bit which brought some of the images I had envisioned. That one image, the one I had seen from my office window of the Magpies perched on the antler, never appeared in the viewfinder. The second image I wanted was a Magpie perched on the top of the rib cage and the rib cage was not all bloody. I did get that shot. A week into this adventure the Coyotes had come back during the night and tugged on what I thought was a rather clean carcass. They exposed a shoulder where some meat remained. Maggie and I checked it out the next morning and I pulled the head around for the next session in the blind. I was in the office about an hour later when I saw the Golden Eagle back, on the carcass eating! Argh! It just goes to show to be on your toes when death comes knocking!