where do all birds go
Given the infinite number of feathered creatures worldwide, one could tell there must be dead birds occasionally falling from the sky. Or a dedicated place where old birds go when it’s time for ascension. Everyone has seen remnants of animals here and there, mostly victims of predators or car accidents, but still… Logically, the planet should have been stashed away with avian skeletons by now. Not only the ancient bones of pterodactyls but more recent, from last year for example.
While we were living in Europe, we explained the phenomenon with the fact that some birds eat other birds and so forth, food chain (although the question of bone, teeth and peak remnants was still open) including predators, bacteria and other methods of assimilation that exist in nature. Since we’ve moved to Australia, however, and our contact with wildlife became even closer, the question resumed with triple force.
In our garden alone are actively living and reproducing representatives of 3-4 parrots species, 5-6 other birds, bush turkeys, rabbits, snakes, echidnas plus a handful of night-crawlers as well. For the past 4 years a gigantic army of birds and animals has jumped, flown and climbed its way just before our eyes (along with already 5th generation of possums occupying our roof) but we haven’t yet seen – even once – a deceased body. If they don’t live forever, where do they go when their time comes?
There are no predator species in this part of Australia and the birds of prey are just a few so it is impossible that animals just eat each other. No one eats possums or parrots. Irrelevant of their life span, we should have tripped over at least one lifeless body in our garden since 2016 till today. On the other hand, if they go to a special retreat at the end, where is it and how come we’ve never found it? Wherever we live, we don’t leave 2 m2 unexplored which means if there were any animal graveyards or tombs, we would have seen them.
David Attenborough – the man whose knowledge about nature I trust the most – doesn’t say much either. He mentioned something about elephants once – that they do go to a special place indeed – but there are perhaps 20.000 other species besides elephants, whose skeletons must have piled up. Science told me that if there are no scavengers, a skeleton needs about 20 years to fully decompose. I’d accept this to be true because science says so but what about the vast kangaroo habitats we’ve visited so many times – we’ve never seen a cemetery even though the roos are thousands…
And then, the bushfires in Australia – hectares of forest burned this January, allegedly killing millions of animals but when we visited these same places in March, remains were nowhere to be seen. The trees were boosting with new life and emerald sprouts born out of the blackened bark but there were no charred bones. Not that we were specifically looking for them, of course, but we did expect some traces from the devastating carnage described by the media just a couple of months ago.
So what happens with the bodies of those animals who go to heaven every day, especially in places with not that many scavenger species? If they are not holograms, how could we see them mating, nesting, hatching, playing, preying and then they just seem to disappear? I’ve asked our rainbow lorikeets an hour ago but both of them keep pecking my lovely sourdough bread crumbs, looking quite oblivious.
