On Mon, 2 Apr 2007 12:47:23 +0100, Bob Hobden wrote
(in article ):


"Sacha" wrote
after, "Broadback"
wrote:
Pongo Potts wrote:
"JWBH"wrote in message

Today I saw a starling drop out of a tree, and it appeared quite dead
on
the ground. I came back about an hour later to pick up the corpse and
it
had disappeared.

what might have happened? foxes roam about there, plus cats and also
we
also have a lot of magpies around. but would they be interested in
taking
an already dead bird?


One in a million sighting.

you said it had just died, so yes a cat would take it.

don't forget a road kill pheasant is still ok to pick up later.


Any dead creature get short shrift in my rather large country garden.
Deag rabbits, squirrels, pidgeons and mice soon get hauled off, some
definately by foxes. Perhaps we should abandone the system of burning or
burying our dead, and leave them out for nature to deal with, much more
eccological friendly.

Which is the Indian (I think) culture that does that? The leave the
bodies
on top of very tall towers and the vultures go to work.....

Followers of the ancient Persian religion Zoroastranism, know as Parsi's, do
that, they simply leave their dead on platforms out in the open for vultures
to consume, the bones are then powdered and that way nothing pollutes the
earth.
http://adaniel.tripod.com/parsi.htm
I've known an Indian Parsi and a Persian (Iranian) Parsi, both lovely
people.



The problem over this practice, at least in India, is that pollution in the
environment is killing off the vultures, and thus destroying the very
agents/vectors that will deal with dead corpses. It is, according to the
Guardian some weeks ago, a very real problem for the Parsi community.
One of the most famous members of the Parsi community here in Britain was the
late Freddie Mercury, lead singer of the pop group Queen.