Where do birds go to die?

Good question. I never really thought about it. I have seen them dead on the beach and in the woods but not in any kind of quantity. I have watched a few black birds die. They would hover around forty feet over the ground flapping their wings but not getting anywhere and suddenly they would just drop to the ground dead. The first one I saw do this made me think it may have been poisoned. The others were in a completely different areas but all were over open fields.
 

I have wondered the same thing. Based on the number of birds around you would think you'd see them laying dead all over the place but I don't see them often at all. The odd one that hit a window or something buy none that I would say died of natural causes.
I suppose. as has been suggested here already, they die in isolated areas and become part of the food chain?
 
Many/Most sick birds will go to the ground. Since they are sick and feel vulnerable, they will often hide away. Seclusion and rest can help them to recover in some cases. But in others, they will simply die in their hideouts and decompose before long.
 
I don't believe one of the standard answers - they hide away - there are millions of birds yet we never see them dead on the ground around us. and how many dead seagulls have you seen lying on the beach during your lifetime?
I have a garden with lots of mature trees , and lots of birds nesting in them. We often find dead birds on the path, mainly the collared doves and wood pigeons .. sometimes old..sometimes young ones.. and some torn to ribbons by Sparrow hawks... :(
 
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Where do birds go to die?
A few go to my attic...
how many dead seagulls have you seen lying on the beach during your lifetime?
Actually quite a few, pelicans too, used to live on the beach and went walking on it every day. They don't last long, plenty of hungry scavengers make short work of them. Probably why they are not so often seen.
 
I don't know if this is useful to this discussion but I once watched a dead kangaroo on the side of the road disappear over a week. First the ants got to work and when the ribs were exposed the flies entered and laid their eggs. The maggots made short work of the innards. At the end of the of the week the garbos collected the skeleton and took it to the tip.
 
Living in a large city, I don't see dead animals of any kind very often. But I have seen dead animals of all sorts occasionally, not always in the city, and sometimes half eaten.

Just around the neighborhood: birds, dogs, cats, rats, snakes, lizards. I'll let you guess what we have come across in the wild.
 
Nothing dead lasts very long in the woods.
I wonder if it is because birds fly, and have very little body mass. If you're as big and heavy as a cow, you ain't going to fly, except on a plane. Birds are generally are much smaller, and really don't weigh very much, so maybe there's not much flesh to wither away, and they decompose much sooner than other animals?
 
I don't know if this is useful to this discussion but I once watched a dead kangaroo on the side of the road disappear over a week. First the ants got to work and when the ribs were exposed the flies entered and laid their eggs. The maggots made short work of the innards. At the end of the of the week the garbos collected the skeleton and took it to the tip.
Yikes! This sounds like a horror flick or something I would read for halloween! Amazing how nature just takes over. :)
 
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And talking about birds, here is one of our cheeky cockies. Still in the dark as to Where do birds go to die, still a mystery IMO

 
In large cities where they have huge office buildings with loads of windows the birds fly into them, we lose a lot of birds that way. The city workers pick them up before everyone starts work. And because so many species are now extinct we need to do our part and feed them, keep our cats indoors . I miss hearing the birds singing.
 


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