About three weeks ago, I looked out the kitchen window and saw a squirrel napping under a pine tree. How cute, I thought. The following day, I noticed it was still there. Assuming it might have a family waiting to be fed, I went out to wake it up.
You got ahead of me, didn't you?
Yes, the squirrel was dead. He had a small bloody hole in his right side, just under the arm. My first assumption was that Rocky had been shot, probably by a kid who had gotten a BB gun for Christmas. I felt that if I left him to decay, the BB would eventually show itself and the riddle of "What Killed Rocky?" would be solved. And of course I wanted to examine the skull. So I left him there to rot. I didn't even close his eyes.
The days were cold and the bugs were few, but by the fourth morning the flies had shown up. The maggots wouldn't be far behind.
On the sixth day, I looked out to find that Rocky was gone. I knew he didn't just get up and bounce off into the sunset. My only guess was that the neighbor directly behind me had jumped the fence and done away with it, either because he had caught a whiff and assumed that I was oblivious to l'odeur de la mort, or his dogs caught a whiff and were making a fuss over it. The thought of someone coming into my yard and taking Rocky did not sit well with me, however I opted not to question my neighbor about it. I shrugged it off and tried to move on with my life.
About a week later, as I was again surveying my domain from the kitchen window, something large moved in one of my pines. I thought it might be a vulture, as I had seen one in the neighborhood within the last few days. When it turned to show its profile, I could tell it was a hawk. Having previously been able to get within a few feet of a barred owl in my yard, I decided to try my luck with the hawk. I opened the door as quietly as I could, but he heard me. He turned, he looked, he departed. As he rose into the air, I could see a squirrel gripped in his MTD's (Mighty Talons of Doom).
So, was the alleged bullet hole really a predatory puncture? Was Rocky killed by a carnivorous canary, a felonious finch, a nefarious nuthatch? If so, why was he dropped and left behind? And what eventually carried him away?
Answers to these questions and more when we... Do I smell meat? Oops, gotta run... there's a gazelle napping under my magnolia. Got to nail that sucker down.
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