The half dozen or so Turkey Vultures patiently adorning the trees in my wooded backyard in Northeast Ithaca alerted me to a dead deer back there. The neighborhood deer have been seeming desperately hungry lately - often seen standing on tiptoes for a measly handful of hemlock needles, shamelessly begging whenever they see me take out the compost, and generally looking unhealthy and unsteady.
There are also some hair-stuffed tubular excreta of some kind in the vicinity. They don't quite look like coyote scat to me, so my next guess is pellets from the vultures? Given the topic of this mailing list, I'll also say that I got fantastic views of these grim and gruesome, but interesting and ecologically valuable, birds. Anyways, the unlucky deer has numbered white ear tags, so I guess somebody went to the trouble of sterilizing it. I'm wondering if anybody is collecting information about these tagged animals. If anybody has any contact info I'd appreciate it! Thanks, Jesse Ross -- Cayugabirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsRULES http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/cayugabirds-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/Cayugabirds 3) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/CAYU.html Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
