Damian's Vulture Corner

Missed Deads [21.02.24]

I've been thinking the past few days about the deads I've seen, but not been able to pick up or keep, and I thought I'd talk about them a little. I'm hoping that as I get a little more experienced with vulture culture, I'll get chances to make up for some of these.

So, literally the day I made my first vulture blog post, I saw two more deads on the roadsides: a small bird of prey, and a badger. The bird I think was possibly a kestrel - pretty small, over at the side of a road. So pretty, the feather patterns were gorgeous, and I love the look of the beak and the head. Sadly, I only have one burial box, and I don't think there's room in our garden to bury something else. Which is a shame because, again, this little bird was beautiful. Such a shame.

On that same drive, I also saw a badger. It was pretty big, looked fully intact - probably quite fresh, if I had to guess. You don't see badgers much at all, really, but I have previously seen one or two as roadkill. It's a shame because they're quite beautiful animals, but I would have loved to bring it home and maybe gotten its skull. Unfortunately, way too big to have just been scooped up, and definitely too big for me to bury in our garden. I don't think he'd have fit into my current burial box, since the seagull honestly only just did. I may have to invest in some larger boxes.

Much further back, I remember taking a late night bus back home from work and seeing a whole deer, on a pavement near the road into my town. It must have been hit by a car and died, but it was gorgeous. Huge, intact, I think it even had antlers - I wanted to badly to take it, or even just go and investigate it, see it up close, but it was late, it was a bit far from home, and home was at that point a small apartment with no access to any garden, certainly not big enough for even the thought of putting it there. Unfortunately by the next day it had already been moved away, and I have no idea where the body was put, so I didn't even get to go for a closer look.

When we lived out in the countryside, it wasn't entirely uncommon for our cats at the time to bring back unfortunate prey. A small mouse, I remember placing outside and watching it decay, until it was carried off at some point. It's a bit of a pity, but again, at the time I didn't have the time or space to do anything specific with it. I just happened to notice it after I'd thrown it out into the grass on the edge of the property. It was very interesting to see him rot, for as much time as I was permitted. On a smilar note, the cat once brought in a rabbit which, although we tried to rescue and release it, unfortunately died from shock when I got it away from the cat. I went to place him a little away from the garden, so that the cats wouldn't just start eating him anyway, and was never able to refind him in the place I thought I put him. Maybe he was taken off by a fox. Maybe I was just dumb. We'll never know, I suppose.

That's about it for specific deads I've wished I could keep or a least the ones I wanted to watch. I'm sure that as I refine my techniques, I'll slowly get more and more comfortable with being able to bring home more deads, prepare more at once, etc etc. Until then I suppose I'll have to stick to one-at-a-time. Ah well. One Day, I promise. Until then, I'll just admire the beautiful deads I see along the road.