Robinson Crusoe killed a bird for dinner only to call its flesh carrion and “fit for nothing.” Shakespeare wrote “That this foul deed shall smell above the earth with carrion men, groaning for burial.”
God created creatures devoted to the eradication of the decaying, fowl-smelling, carrion of deceased wildlife. These critters loved their job. They survived on the extinguished existence of fellow wildlife. Sometimes called the cycle of life, the process reached back to creation itself.
Angelkeep’s habitat supported a huge range of animal visitors. A few of which lived here full-time. Some were born, thrived, and then eventually died. Their death literally supported the livelihood of other visiting animals. In death, those no longer among the living, become carrion, or a life-sustaining food source. Some considered that gross. Literally, nature’s survival depended on those carrion lovers.
So who visited Angelkeep to dine on the lost? To nobody’s surprise, turkey buzzards head the list. Flies were also commonly known as carrion processors. Larvae of some flies, unscientifically called maggots, helped clear the earth of decaying matter including deceased animals. In return a good and fat maggot helped many a fisherman catch a fish. A fisherman determining a catch too small for the skillet, and discarding it into the brush rather than back to the water, produced a choice piece of carrion which offered the maggot clan the last laugh.
Locally, coyotes assisted nature in cleaning the land of unburied death. Other regular scavengers might have come as a surprise. Local crows, hawks, eagles, and opossum’s appeared on this list. Though not the primary food source, a blue jay had been seen in the past carrying off a dead mouse with intent for dining. Carry out carrion, so to speak.
Not too long ago a major source of carrion surfaced after a Norfolk Southern locomotive won the life-and-death contact sport with two deer ending life on Angelkeep soil. Opinion Page Editor Mark Miller had been contacted for his opinion as to the delicacy of such a story appearing in Angelkeep Journals. He answered the issue with news and photo appearing on page one as the daily’s lead story.
Two phone calls resulted in an NS personage promising to notify a maintenance crew. The NS maintenance crew apparently opted to send in the reserve winged teams, NS buzzards and flies. To be Angelkeep-fare, NS at that time also had a continuing raft of derailments, deservingly of a higher priority.
Who knew that a bird, granted buzzards are among the largest birds of Angelkeep, could turn over an adult deer? Buzzards relocated a deer’s dead weight a distance of 15 feet…uphill. This happened after Angelkeep’s human dweller determined it excessive weight to attempt moving the carcasses due to personal heart health concerns.
Another pair of interesting creatures ate carrion, but Tasmanian devils and Komodo dragons had yet to visit Angelkeep, thus not listed among local nature visitors with undertaking duty.
Similarly, foxes dined on the occasional road-kill, but so far a fox has not been captured in any Angelkeep photography. Angelpond contained freshwater, not conducive to another aquatic animal willing to dine on dead flesh, that being a shark.
Angelkeep’s past identified the occasional carrion beetle. Their larvae partially thrive on the food source that their namesake implied.
A possom, with Indiana DNR correction to opossum, had never been observed dining on carrion at Angelkeep. Instead they have always been seen clawing up and devouring oil sunflower seeds dropped from feeders by the birds. This strange large rat-looking animal ate a variety. They might kill small animals for a meal as well as the happenstance discovery of carrion.
Mice caught in traps inside Angelkeep’s garage were typically disposed of in a flower bed for natural composing. Invariably they disappeared. Blue jays, mentioned previously, have carried them off. The internet said other mice would devour the dead of its kind. Angelkeep’s primary dead mouse carrion lover came in the form of several neighborhood roving, tame, well-nourished cats, pursuing instinctive behaviors at Angelkeep. If they couldn’t catch a fresh songbird, a dead mouse did nicely.
Gotta go, pizza delivery arrived. Why are baked, dead, meats never called carrion?
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A Postscript
On New Year’s Day, 1907, a News-Banner predecessor, the Bluffton Chronicle, reported two stories on page five that have a shallow but interesting association with today’s Angelkeep Journals.
Interurban railroad conductors and motormen used train cars in place of rifles to hunt rabbits on the way into town. They discovered rabbits played along the tracks at night. They learned, if they spotted it while bearing down on a bunny, 2-3 short blasts of the car’s horn bewildered them to pricking up its ears and staring into the approaching light. Deer struck. The head-to-head impact tossed the hare to the side, “deader than a nit.” On the return trip, leaving town, the crew stopped and picked up the rabbits to provide a fine meal the next day. As many as three were killed in one night.
Two columns over, a Bluffton’s men’s club known as “The Buzzards” enjoyed a New Year’s Eve celebration in their “roost” on North Main Street, “and a swell banquet was served with three large turkeys as the central dish.”
Mr. Daugherty is a Wells County resident who, along with his wife Gwen, enjoy their backyard and have named it “Angelkeep.”
