Dead Animal Retrospective

A rough list of all the dead things we've encountered this year. This is probably going to be a little gross. Pictures linked to because not everyone might want to see dead, rotting wildlife:

- Dead leopard gecko: In the freezer. Former resident of the reptile room. Has been there since last year.
- Dead bald eagle : Given to Bill by some woman who found it dead in her yard. Probably attacked by another bald eagle. We put it in our freezer in order to get it stuffed but have failed to get a permit, and have failed to do anything about it since then. Several months later, it still takes up half the freezer.
- Dead mice (too many to count). Mostly bought frozen and fed to the snakes, but occasionally they'll die in the VC or the house and we'll have to track them down. Found: in a pile of tinsel, and in one of my leg warmers. The leg warmer one was pretty bloated, and I threw it into the grass. Tara decided it would be a great idea to ride over it with a bicycle, and popped it.
- Dead beaver: Found on the side of the road, on the way to do stream corridor assessment. Upside down, relatively intact, disturbingly adorable.
- Dead (barred) owl: On the side of the road, on the way to stream corridor assessment. Not so intact.
- Dead cat - this one is fairly disturbing: Found in a periwinkle bed right outside the VC. Clearly had been there for a while, not really sure how we managed to not notice it. I covered it up with a trash bag and made Tara and Karen deal with it. They buried it behind the shop.
- Dead fish (numerous): In January, after a couple of really warm days, we noticed a large population of seagulls circling Merkle Pond. I noticed that they were eating some really big dead things - at first I thought they were geese! - and we went to check it out and discovered lots of huge dead bass and dead shad everywhere. It turned out that on one of the hot days there had been an algae bloom, which sucked all of the oxygen out of the pond and killed the fish. The great Merkle Massacre led to a debacle with a pump, a lot of bald eagle sightings (they were pretty happy with all the free food), and the pond being closed for the season to anglers. Oh, and a pretty hilarious monthly report photo-montage set to the song "That Smell".
- Dead deer (several): Usually found mostly decomposed, or just bones. Notable ones: the deer that we found in a closed room in a barn. As far as we could tell it had fell in through the ceiling. Also, the deer spine in the field that Tara snuck up on me with and made me scream like a little girl.
- Dead baby bluebirds (many): Ugh. This was foul. Two boxes full of dead baby birds (unclear how they died... no signs of injury. Maybe overheated or drowned?) hadn't been checked in a while and really got pretty grody. No pictures for this one, and it's probably for the best.
- Dead mystery bird, with very much alive mystery baby: Found a dead brown bird that I didn't recognize outside of my old house, near a tree swallow nest that looked like it had been ransacked. There was an injured but feisty baby nearby... I put it into an old yogurt container, and called Bill, who said to find a tree swallow nest still in use and throw it in there. The baby didn't make it... probably because I was wrong about the whole tree-swallow thing.
- Soon to be dead baby starlings and embryonic wood-ducks: This is a whole other story. I'll tell it later.
- Dead red-winged blackbird. I don't know. Tara found it somewhere.