Raccoon Bones

I see a lot of dead raccoons in my travels and explorations -- in fact, after deer, they're the second-most common animal I encounter. In Ann Arbor they are especially prevalent, and not a day goes by where I don't see a raccoon or two dead on the road. They are large enough that, when they die in nature, their bodies are relatively easy to locate -- unlike squirrels and other smaller animals.

On Monday afternoon, I was exploring more of the Matthaei Botanical Gardens' property, over near Mouse Marsh. I was on the lookout for deer, and I saw a few -- but only their white tails, as they were fleeing from me. At one point, a buck started to snort, but I never caught sight of him. Toward the end of my walk, I approached a sheltered area, surrounded by short trees, and I saw a raccoon skull resting atop the leaf litter. Nearby, peeking through the fallen leaves, were the two halves of its pelvis. The natural whiteness of the skull was beautiful against the earthy brown tones, making for a wonderful scene:

I sifted through the leaves and soil, and found the jaws of the animal, along with some of the front leg bones (a humerus as well as a pair of tibiae and fibulae), a scapula, a couple dozen phalanges, a few ribs, some vertebrae, and a baculum - meaning the raccoon was a male.

It's interesting to note that most of the ribs I found were damaged (broken), as was the very back of the skull, where the cranium connects to the atlas vertebra. Whether this damage was the cause of the raccoon's death (predation) or whether it was inflicted after the fact (scavenging) will probably never be known. As I mentioned earlier, the skeleton was found in a rather sheltered spot, making it both a more comfortable place for the raccoon to hide before dying, or a protected area for a predator to eat in peace. However, that is all speculation!

How long had the skeleton been there? The bones were all very clean, with not a scrap of ligament remaining, and were all relatively bleached, even the ones found beneath the leaves. However, there were no rodent gnaw-marks to be seen, which is interesting. Perhaps the raccoon died in the spring, and the hot summer months allowed for fast decomposition.

I'm finding I enjoy photographing skeletons just as much, if not more, than photographing recently-dead animals. Though bones are harder to relate to and perhaps not as "beautiful", they are far more intricate and provide for very interesting compositions. I also love to photograph these skulls and skeletons exactly as I find them: their immediate surroundings show just how much nature grows around these dead animals, and is nourished by them.

A Feline "Gift"

Here's something I had not yet encountered until now: a cat gift. There are plenty of cats in our apartment complex, and while most of them, when let outside, are supervised by their owners, some are not. Just a few weeks ago, we saw a cat catch and kill a chipmunk, carry it to the concrete step, and begin to eat it -- only to see the owner come running outside, scold his cat, and bury the chipmunk's body. Of course, it wasn't the cat's fault -- cats are carnivores, and they're hard-wired to catch and kill prey.

That said, outdoor cats are a huge strain on wildlife, especially birds. I can't stress enough how it is the fault of the owners -- not the cats -- that bird populations are being impacted. Thankfully, I have yet to find any birds brought down by cats, but last week, I did find a mouse. It was missing its head and front legs, but there was no blood or gore to be seen. It was a very tiny body, so I used the macro lens to photograph it.

This was one animal, I'll admit, that I didn't spend very much time photographing. I was very hesitant to touch the body, as I've heard that mice can carry all sorts of nasty diseases. However, I was pleased with this particular photograph. It's larger than life-size, and it shows the softness of the fur and delicate nature of the mouse's feet.

I'm not sure of the species, so if anyone's got an idea, it'd be appreciated.

The Colors of a Junco

Last night, my mother presented me with a junco she had found at her workplace; it had died after colliding with a window. She recounted how, after she had found the junco, she showed it to a family with a child, and they seemed to be very interested in seeing such a beautiful bird so close-up. By the time I received the junco, it was nearly dark outside, so I stowed it in my fridge to photograph today. It was much larger than I expected it to be -- it was about the size of a house sparrow, and certainly bigger than a chickadee. It felt strangely heavy.

Though its eyes were dry when it was found, the bird couldn't have been dead for long; I discovered tiny bird lice on its feathers this morning, leaving their host since it was deceased. Here is a view of a louse on the junco's breast feathers -- greatly enlarged, of course.


I'm always fascinated by bird feet. Not only do birds have very specialized feet depending on how and where they live, their scaly toes and sharp claws are such an interesting contrast to their soft, downy feathers.

I don't know much about juncos. They usually arrive in Ann Arbor around late-fall and stay for the winter. When I see them feeding at a birdfeeder, they're usually on the ground, eating fallen millet seeds. And as far as birds go, juncos are rather nondescript, with gray and white plumage. At least, that's what I thought...

... until I took a closer look. In reality, all kinds of hues are mixed in with the junco's gray-and-white plumage: tawny browns and slate-blues, blacks and reds. It was amazing to have the chance to see such a beautiful palette of colors, and this has certainly increased my appreciation of juncos.

Two Tales of Deer, Part II

One thing -- as I mentioned at the close of my previous post -- that I've tried to avoid in this series is photographing animals that were killed purposely by humans. I don't hang out at slaughterhouses and haven't been to the buck pole in years, so hunted and slaughtered animals just aren't something I ever encounter. In addition, as I think I might have explained in the early days of this blog, society -- myself included -- has a completely different perception of livestock and game animals that are killed for food.

Hunting is a sensitive subject for me; I both understand it and dislike it. As speciesist as it may be, I am much more open to the hunting of herbivores (such as deer) than that of carnivores (such as coyotes). And, having lived in the state of Michigan my entire life, I certainly understand the hype and celebration surrounding deer season. All that said, all opinions aside, hunting is completely within the law -- that is, if you're doing it legally.

This story isn't about natural deaths, nor is it about deer season -- it's about poaching, and a blatant disregard and disrespect for life and the law.

On Sunday morning, my dad and I drove out toward Pinckney to visit friend and fellow photographer Marc Akemann. About a week earlier, when I had been lamenting the lack of subject matter in Ann Arbor, Marc had suggested I visit, as his property borders the Brighton Recreation Area. He told me that he was finding dead animals all the time out there -- primarily, poached deer.

Upon arriving, the first spot we inspected was a parking area next to a small lake. As soon as I climbed out of the car, the stench of death hit me -- it was a very familiar odor, one that I'd not encountered in many years. It was the smell of recently-slaughtered, rotting deer. The bodies didn't take long to locate. The first two deer that we found had to have been killed within the past couple weeks -- one was extremely fresh: the fat and muscle on his exposed ribcage was glistening, and flies were flocking to his legs and face. The second was only slightly older; the fur had seemingly exploded from his head, creating a most bizarre scene:

A third deer was found in the most disturbing of places: beneath a heap of garbage. The corpse had been hidden, but not very well, as a simple nudge of the trash uncovered the skull's ghastly smile:

This deer, too, had not been there for more than a month or so. Skin and fur still clung to the skull, and the mountain of waste atop the body was trapping in the smell, and perhaps slowing decomposition. The deer's teeth, and that perceived grimace, was incredibly powerful to me. Combined with the trash and ditched mustard packet, the scene spoke volumes. Waste... disrespect... uselessness.

These deer were poached for meat and antlers. After those things were taken, the bodies were thrown into roadside ditches, hidden beneath piles of brush and garbage, and, in some cases, left behind in plain sight without a care in respect to life or the law. I did find the remains of two or three does (both yearling and adult), but the majority of the corpses belonged to bucks. Their antlers were cut from their heads, leaving behind grisly, gaping holes in the skulls.

This skull, bleached white and starting to grow green moss or algae, had been there for quite some time -- a few years, at the least -- and one must wonder just how many layers of poached deer line the parking lots and roadsides of this area.

Because there were so many bodies, lone skulls, and partial skeletons, it was hard for me to keep track of how many deer we encountered. At the lakeside parking area, I counted at least five deer, but it was probably closer to six or seven, all in various stages of decomposition. Marc showed us some other areas, and led us along a few trails through the (very beautiful) forest. We didn't encounter any ditched deer corpses in the woods, however -- we only found them along the roadsides. One such body, left in plain sight, had been decapitated. The tissue on its ribcage had turned dark, and falling leaves were starting to cover the corpse.

Though we probably saw more, I can specifically remember seeing the corpses, skulls, and skeletons of eleven separate deer. One of the last bodies we visited was one that Marc had found a year or two prior. It, like the others, had been dumped along the roadside. All that remained were the bones; the spinal column, though disarticulated, still rested in a row.

Nature, of course, treats these bodies like any other. They decay and fall apart; maggots squirm in the meager flesh left behind, and crows pick away at the skin and connective tissues. But at what cost?

I plan on returning to this area once rifle season has come and gone, as I'd like to do more extensive photography of the bodies, and try some different compositional techniques. I'd also like to shoot with film, in black and white. For this set, I attempted to follow my standard Useless Creatures rule of bringing out the beauty in the dead; however, it's terribly hard to bring beauty into something so evil and wasteful.

Two Tales of Deer, Part I

In the past week, I've had two very different experiences with deer remains. The first, which I'll chronicle in this post, took place at the Matthaei Botanical Gardens (MBG). There's a good deal of land on the MBG property that isn't explored by the public, as there are no trails. Steph and I have only begun our exploration of the area, and there's still plenty for us to discover. Earlier this week, we blundered through the woods, eager to see what we could find.

The first discovery we made was a deer skull -- at least, most of one. Largely chewed away, it had been sitting in the forest for quite some time. Its size was smaller, indicating it was likely from a younger doe. Interestingly enough, there were no other bones nearby. Here is how we found it, upside-down and unmistakable in the leaf litter:

We continued on our way, and soon we found a second deer skull, also from a doe:

This skull, like the first, was very clean and white, and had probably been sitting in the woods for at least a year or two. However, unlike the first, this skull was accompanied by a good deal of the skeleton. Steph and I searched through the fallen leaves for quite some time, and found about half of the vertebrae and ribs, a leg bone, and one of the jaw bones. The bone pile that we made:

Over half the skeleton was missing, which can probably be attributed to the coyotes in the area. In fact, the skull even had some peculiar punctures, one beneath the eye socket, which I think was the result of coyote teeth.

Many of the bones we found were heavily chewed, perhaps by animals scavenging in the winter. Rodent gnaw marks, though, were quite minimal. One animal that was using the skull was this incredibly large slug, who had been snuggled up inside the brain case:

Steph and I returned to a nearby area at the MBG a few days later. We found a third doe skull, and like the first skull we found, this one was by itself.

In all likelihood, these three deer probably died natural deaths. They might have succumbed to the winter, or they might have been brought down by coyotes. Dixboro Road is a bit of a distance from where these bones were found, but the deer could have been injured in traffic, only to disappear into the forest to die. At this point, it's really hard to tell, though the tooth mark(s) in the second skull definitely point to coyote activity.

Though it was a bit overwhelming to find the remains of three separate deer in one (relatively) small area, it wasn't to be unexpected: deer are very prevalent in this region, especially in areas where hunting is not allowed. Their population is somewhat controlled by traffic and coyotes, but there still are plenty, and, being the large animals that they are, their remains are quite easy to locate.

Part II, which I will post in the coming days, is a completely different story, because the deaths involve the direct hand of Man -- something I have not yet explored in this project.