Wild food chain

[guidofatherof5]

. I keep trying to pound that in, but I can also understand your dismay. Things get eaten. Plain and simple.

No dismay or rose colored glasses here.

[ConcinusMan]

We have crows here that eat carrion and I've heard of them killing toads and removing their spleens in a quite precise surgical manner but I've never seen them kill anything myself. They don't seem to like garter snakes around here. I've seen them pick at one but lose interest. And yet, I've seen robins feasting on baby garters before. At least they don't waste it. They swallow them whole.

Shrikes on the other hand are quite the little garter hunters. They usually catch them alive and impale them on barbed wire fences and come back later to pick out the organs. Brutal.

[Stefan-A]

I wouldn't interfere.

[ConcinusMan]

I don't know about the birds you have there, but it's always open season on crows and jays around here. I'm still thinking it's possible that someONE cut off the head and the birds did the rest.