When you are an avid patch worker you might assume that things become stale, but the reverse is true. I have been visiting and recording wildlife on my patch since 2002 and recording them on Trail Cameras since 2016. Ecosystems are dynamic places constantly changing and all the hours I have spent down there have barely scratched the surface of animal behaviour.
Whilst out changing out my memory
cards on Friday morning I came across the carcass of a bird. It was close to
the bird feeding station and not far from the backwater. At first, I thought it
was a crow but as I got closer, I could see it was a duck, one of the domestic hybrid
Mallard that frequents the river. On closer examination, I could see that it
was lying on its back. The head seemed to be missing and the breast muscles had
been eaten away on either side revealing the keel. There was very little blood suggesting that it
had been dragged to this location and the remaining meat was still fresh and
red, there was little smell and no decomposition. There was a general carpet of
some down and feathers that looked pulled rather than plucked. I reckoned it
had been killed that night or early in the morning.
Who was the culprit? I had two animals in mind straight away. The way the bird had been eaten so neatly suggested a mammal predator. Avian predators such as buzzards would hold the prey down with their talons and rip the meat free from the carcass creating jagged tears, additionally, they tend to pluck birds leaving discarded feathers with intact shafts, foxes by comparison bite through the feathers. My number one suspect was an otter. It could easily have taken a duck sleeping on the backwater or from the undergrowth and then dropped it here.
I knew that my Mostela camera
wasn’t catching much footage so I relocated this camera to watch the carcass to
see what appeared later. I left the camera in place until today (Sunday) and
returned to collect it. The duck was gone, and I had 839 photos and videos to
examine.
To my delight, my suspicion was
confirmed. The first interest in the carcass was an otter arriving at 21:06
(The mostela camera was 1 hour ahead). It went directly to the carcass and
began feeding. It sat comfortably pulling chunks off and gulping it down with
slappy chops for initially 8 minutes before something spooked it and it dashed
away. It almost immediately returned settling in to feast for a further 4
minutes before slinking off. It returned at 23:58 and spent a further 4 minutes
eating. This meant that it spent in total, 16 minutes eating and seemingly
enjoying its meal.
With the otter gone a wood mouse appeared (3:25 am) and pottered about for 8 minutes.
Daytime on the 16th of
March brought a woodpigeon and blackbird that seemed unfussed by the carcass.
At 19:15 a fox appears and casually starts to feed. It feeds on the main carcass
and around it until 19:21, at this point, it picks up the remains and drags it
off. I suspect it took the remains to cache it somewhere. I doubt the carcass
was picked clean and so there was still food available that it could access
later. This suspicion is validified somewhat by its return 10 minutes later whereupon
it continues to scavenge any and all scraps still available. It did this
sporadically leaving and returning until 20:41 and then again in the early
hours of the 17th.
For a full video of the fox click here
I want to go over the footage in more detail to make sure it's the same individuals and comment a little more in the eating habits of the two species. As you can see the otter tends to settle down comfortably to eat. It rips chunks from the carcass and devours them with large bites. The fox however acts more like the scavenger it is. It doesn't seem to settle as well, preferring to stand and feed. It keeps a wary eye out and varies its feeding from the caracss to remains scattered across the site.
