“Children of the night! What music they make! Ah, but you are a city dweller, and cannot know the joy of the hunt.”
Cartoons have given people the mistaken impression that roadrunners eat birdseed. Nope. They are predators.
Watching a roadrunner kill a rattlesnake is fascinating to watch. The snake will try to strike the bird. The bird will dodge. The bird will peck at the snake, right where the skull meets the spine. It may take a dozen or more pecks, but eventually the roadrunner will kill the snake. Then the bird will swallow the snake’s head, and spend the next few days with the tail hanging out of its mouth, as its stomach gradually digests the snake.
I don’t know about real coyotes, but when my parents’ dog chased one, it would run just fast enough to stay ahead of it, then fly up into a bush just out of the dog’s reach. It would taunt him mercilessly.
I had never previously heard of a lechwe. It’s a species of antelope.
Someone posted a picture on a local Facebook page of a bald eagle carrying off a squirrel, and got so much flack for it, they had to take the picture down. A squirrel, a fish - to the eagle, it’s dinner.
There are a lot of them. On safari, we would often just call them “DLTs” (Deer-Like-Things) as they were everywhere. But it’s interesting how quickly you can learn the names of most of what you see.
I mean I don’t think it would but it’s not a logical thing is it ? When I’ve seen a small animal caught by a predator it’s not bugged me at all, but I’ve never seen a large predator take down prey IRL. I can see how it might be disturbing
Yes, it would absolutely bother me. Doesn’t matter a whit to me if it’s natural. Lots of things are natural, doesn’t mean I want to witness them. Knowing this, I don’t think I’d ever go on such an adventure but if I did, I’d definitely turn my head.
I get that. I once saw a photo montage of a pair of guys slaughtering a hog. And the pictures where the hog realized it was about to die and was terrified were upsetting. The photos of butchering the dead hog didn’t bother me. But the ones that captured the pain and suffering of the live hog did.
So i don’t know how ugly the death you observed was, but maybe it would have bothered me, maybe it wouldn’t.
I would have gone the next day. But I can understand why this guy didn’t want to.
Lol, we have foxes in my back yard this summer, and the first time one was close enough to the house to take a good photo, it squatted just as i clicked the button. I took a great photo of a fox with a turd being extruded. I did not share that photo. I’ve shared other photos of the foxes since then.
I guess I’ll be the weirdo. I admit that I enjoy watching predators in action on nature programs. Birds catching fish, crocodiles attacking wildebeest, killer whales attacking seals, etc., etc. If I got to see a lion take down a gazelle in real life I’d be tickled pink. Or splattered red depending on how close I was to the action. I think I’d still feel some sympathy for the poor gazelle though.
Several years ago, one fine morning, the local eagle-cams “turned on” with the light of day, and an eaglet was missing from the nest. Experts said that most likely, an owl or a hawk carried it off when a parent eagle was not there, and some people were saying, “We need to find that bird, and kill it!” I mean, why? Owls and hawks have to eat, too.
