C.S.I. = Can See It

Like several other deer around here, this one got hit by a car just before hunting season opened in November and lay dead on the road shoulder about 200 feet down the highway. This past season Franklin County, just inches to our west (I can throw a stone over the county line), had the biggest deer harvest in the state of Missouri: more than 4,000. Sorry, Bambi fans: The herd needed thinning. Worse than seeing a deer in the road shoulder is seeing half a deer.  That's to say nothing of the people in the car. Before you get all Awww about deer hunting, imagine your own car hitting a deer that rolls at 50 mph through your windshield onto you and your passengers.

Three, four, five days and I began to wonder: Who picks up the roadkill in Missouri?

Within a city's limits: Animal Control. (Hey, all of you who love to work with animals. . .)
On a county road: Missouri Department of Conservation, and don't call about anything smaller than a deer because they believe in nature taking care of its own.
On a state road: Missouri Department of Transportation.

They do it on call, but I didn't know that then. When scavenger birds picked at the carcass I looked the other way. Then I got all involved in whatnot and left town for a week. Came back and catching up on work barely left the Divine Cabin for a week to ten days. Then going for a walk I see this. Looks like a young deer (they're the most fearless and ignorant) who was broadsided.

Bambi's Skull

Empty turtle shells whitened to chalk by the weather, and bones, and sometimes skulls large or small lie on the forest floor or the creek's edge. This poor fawn died I know not how or when, but please have a look at Bambi's teeth: huge, long, serrated and razor-edged for ripping leaves and grass and garden vegetables--and picture double their number, because this photo is only of the upper plate. Angry deer--yes, they get angry and charge--fight, bite, and kick with those rock-hard hooves and antlers, and a big one can knock you down and stomp you to a pulp and we all know what they can do to a car.

Statistically you are much more likely to be killed by a deer than by a shark. Before getting all teary-eyed over gentle big-eyed Bambi, remember that in the movie Bambi fights Ronno for Faline, stomping Ronno without mercy and knocking him off a cliff. The fight is shown mostly in silhouette to avoid showing blood, wounds, and agony. Nature is not quite so discreet.

Guess Who Came to Dinner

A good rain with thunder came yesterday, so today I went to Waterfall #5 to get waterfall glamour photos; It's just off the lane, down a wooded slope, and opposite a cliff 15 feet high. At the bottom of the slope I saw a mound of fur with no body. Thought it might have been an opossum. Wrong. Bones and legs showed that something trapped and feasted on a small deer there. My guess is a coyote, but many creatures could have joined in. Not too far away was a mound of fur on a log, suggesting a hawk or other winged predator might have helped pick it clean.

In other local news, the one day of heavy rain breached and wiped out the beaver dam, in part because the dam created a wide pool with a narrow neck. Rushing water would have passed over and through the dam with great force. Now the creek is left with an excellent swimming hole.