We rarely see dead birds and animals - yes, there's the odd road kill, poison, violent death corpse but there are millions of birds and animals and we only ever see a few dozen dead creatures in our full life times.

Where do they go? What do they do?

Why has there never been a Bill Oddie type revelation about this?

Are there secret bird cemetaries?

I always remember that snapshot of the Queen throttling a pheasant. Incidentally that Helen Mirren film The Queen is utter garbage! I had the misfortune to sit through it last night. No doubt they'll be out hunting this morning. Prince Phillip is a mean shot. He stalks deer.

As a country boy I can tell you the answer, JK.

Mice, rats, foxes, various insects and other wildlife combine to devour the corpses. Their clean up rate is very good, and so the countryside is kept free from dead bodies by those who are generally classed as vermin but who really do an excellent job.

JK2006 wrote:
We rarely see dead birds and animals - yes, there's the odd road kill, poison, violent death corpse but there are millions of birds and animals and we only ever see a few dozen dead creatures in our full life times.

Where do they go? What do they do?

Why has there never been a Bill Oddie type revelation about this?

Are there secret bird cemetaries?

Foxes, maggots and decomposition.

Hmmm... sounds like the tabloid press

I once discovered a dead bull by the road, which had a notice stuck on it saying "POLICE AWARE"!, if thats of any help.(any large dead beasts are allways reported to the police down here, particularly as a dead or a deer in the road is quite a hazard)

Dead birds on the whole seem to be fox food.

When I was a kid, I found a dead bird in the woods, which was actually rather rare, and still is, called a Brambling.
Over the next week, I found over 50 of them, I have never seen one alive ever, but it is ticked in my book as a sighting, as I think that the mass grave we dug for them all counts still.

Investigation, seemed to point a finger at the next door farmers fertilizer, but I am still none the wiser.

Anyways, so yes, there is at least one large dead bird cemetery in the woods in Ottershaw , Surrey.

I suppose a lot are eaten by predators, the rest devoured by scavengers.

All sounds a bit brutal. I think I'll buy into the secret bird cemetaries theory instead!

Interesting question. Perhaps they decompose quicker than humans? Or fall prey to scavengers?

OK So where are all the dead foxes and other predators?

Sorry; there are too many corpses to be eaten and too few sightings to match up.

I'm no expert, but I believe the eco-system is designed to maintain a delicate balance, JK. I often see dead badgers and foxes on the road on my way to work, and they are invariably being picked at by crows and the like.

Nothing goes to waste in nature. Humans invented the notion of wastefulness.

Sorry Anthony but I see bagders and foxes being eaten by crows too but only every now and then.
I walk in the woods and fields and meadows - when you think of how many LIVE creatures you spot (hundreds of rabbits and squirrels and thousands of birds let alone millions of insects)... it cannot explain the missing corpses.

No - there's more to this than meets the eye!

(My Mum and I talked at length about this a few months ago).

are you suggesting there is a conspiracy amongst the animal kingdom to hide their dead?

Other posters are right-they get eaten by scavengers or consumed by maggots-you'd be surprised how quickly maggots can consume a body. That does of course raise the question-where do all the dead maggots go ?

Maybe you just answered your own question, JK. You see hundreds of animals, thousands of birds and millions of insects, yet only a small percentage of them die each day. This does explain the missing corpses. It's simple maths. It's the way wildlife has managed the countryside for centuries.

We seldom see it happen because much of it takes place at night. Owls, foxes, rodents, cats, dogs, insects, all contribute.

Add people such as park keepers, gardeners and those who pick up dead rabbits etc. to take home for dinner, and things become even clearer.

There's really no mystery.

If an animal is feeling ill do they hide themselves away in their chosen lair?

A dead sparrow hawk was bone and feathers certainly in less than a week, then the corpse disappeared... it did/was return(ed)

It was under one of those garden sifting things, can't remember what they're called, put there by my mother who wanted the skeleton... don't ask.

The sifting thing kept it from being removed by a fox or whatever.

You'd probably be surprised how quickly creatures appear at the scene of a death and run off with it and eat it or tuck it away somewhere for later.

Well, how many dead humans do we see? Very few. Why? Not predators or scavengers - we have our ways (hospitals, morgues, cremation, burials - all of which I've sadly recently become acquainted with) of disposing of corpses.

So could it be that animals and birds and rodents and insects all have their processes too?

We do, after all, end up as earth fodder eventually too.

Is it that when animals get ill or near the end of their life they get caught and eaten before they drop dead and lie around