Trail-Cams Catch Deer Eating Birds

Now here’s something we hunters don’t read about every day. Deer are prey animals, right? Then how did researchers in North Dakota get pics of these herbivores munching baby birds right out of their nests? It appears that the field cameras or “nest cams” they used prove that deer may be prone to sidestepping our landscaping and other vegan fare after all.

According to a story posted on the North Dakota report in the Free Republic yesterday, squirrels hit 13 nests and foxes and weasels took one nest each. Clearly, deer still have some competition from the usual culprits.

Perhaps deer in Canada need some meat-based nutrients, too. Apparently Canada seconds the notion as a group of ornithologists there said that the adult birds they were studying disappeared. The researchers used what they call “mist-nets” designed to be draped between trees so birds and bats could be trapped gently and then collected, studied and released. So far, so good—until they said a herd of the ungulates walked up to the struggling birds and ate them right out of the nets.

This gives an all new meaning to the words “food for thought.” A quick online search shows this storyline actually surfaced several times in the past few years, but how many of us heard about it?