Tacking CSI....Warning....freaky dead stuff!

[British Red]

Okay, now I can only suspect this to have been a combination of events that caused this "Blair Witch wind chime"

I have a few theories...but they are just that...theories.

The body is / was (I think) a hen pheasant. The tree is a beech. The date...Christmas Eve 2006. I don't believe it was put up there by a person. There were no tracks beneath the tree, the ground was soft. It was in a patch of private woodland on the Downs,

The rest is up to you.........

Let the speculation begin!

Red

 

[Scrimmy]

Carrion Crow carried remaing carcas into tree is one scenario of may, and your quote, I tihnk i am a living exmaple of a townie crossing over into the country and back again

 

[HillBill]

How high up the tree Red?

 

[falcon]

Well...maybe if you were in shooting country, one of those shot birds which gets caught up in descent and eludes the dogs which are picking up.....?

 

[British Red]

Certainly in shooting country..on a shooting estate ...but not over a stand,

About 7-8' up the tree I guess

Red

 

[falcon]

The lack of dense cover is puzzling insofar as cover density is what usually causes pickers' up to overlook shot birds. There again....I've seen apparently unshot birds suddenly collapse 200 yards behind the line...... Your theories are eagerly awaited

 

[HillBill]

Judging on how it hangs i think a shot bird can be ruled out. It wouldn't have stuck like that when the bird was whole. So it has been put there part decomposed/eaten.

Maybe died naturally in the tree, got wedged fell as it rotted? Possibly a wounded bird from a shoot, landed in tree then died, wedged, rotted, fell, snagged?

 

[Bushwhacker]

I can't see any legs, spine or head, so I don't think it's died up there and rotted away. I'd expect to see a whole skeleton.
Maybe a Buzzard or carrion feeder dropped what was initially a fox kill, which could explain for the rest of the body to be missing. I say 'dropped' as it doesn't look to be a suitable perch or dining area to eat from.

 

[JonathanD]

Bones look like they have been picked clean and not rotted away. Not that old. I'd go with Scrimmy and it being carrion picked up by another bird from the ground, stripped clean and dropped once finished with.

 

[British Red]

Pretty close I suspect. The bones are not weathered, it was a relatively fresh carcas...I'd put it at more than a day but well less than a week. The way its hung up feels like "dropped" to me - especialy given its partial nature. There are certainly buzzard, rooks and crows in those woods. The clean picked nature I find surprising though - hardly woth carrying off I would have thought. Entirely wrong time of year for any form of nest cleaning though........

I have to confess I can't construct an entirely satisfying explanation

Red

 

[JonathanD]

These threads are cool Red, we need more

 

[British Red]

I haven't bothered photgraphing a lot of this stuff in the past but I'll make a point of doing so from now on.

I'm nobody's tracker though - I just love these little puzzles and like to try to undersand whats happening in this little corner of heaven they call the Downs

I'm really glad others like puzzling over these things too

Red

 

[smoggy]

It could have been the reamains of somethings meal.....which could have been thrown into the tree.......!
boys will be boys......

Smoggy.