I make the assumption all of us enjoy birds (of various species) to some degree.
My question is: What happens to birds that die of natural causes?
Other correlated questions such as where do the die, how often, etc?
The few dead birds I've come across have clearly not died of natural causes, so????
As far as I know, they lay there and rot away, maggots and carrion beetles helping things along. Unless something comes along and eats them first.
Jim Kovar Vulcan, Mi
Natural things!
Scavengers, fly larvae, beetles, fungi, plant roots, in about that order.
Cheers Trevor Jones
I saw a hawk catch a sparrow a couple of weeks ago. But other birds like blackbirds and jays will harass a hawk until it flies off.
Thanks for the replies. That is pretty much what the wife & I had concluded also.
I've wondered about this too.
I've watched birds that can't fly and their primary objective is concealment. Presumably birds that have a potentially fatal disease or injury will conceal themselves if possible until they die. A bird carcass probably decomposes very quickly while the feathers tend to obscure the corpse. I've seen little mats of feathers that were birds that are very hard to make out unless you are looking for them.
They get munched up pretty quickly by other things. You can see just feathers in a few days. Probably a sick bird attempts to hide itself in the hopes that it might be feeling better and survive if it can avoid predators spotting it in a weakened state in the meantime.
Now, why don't you ever see baby pigeons?
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