Interesting little read:

http://io9.com/field-cameras-catch-deer-eating-birds-wait-why-do-deer-1689440870

Yeah, they will eat small birds or other small animals to get needed...Calcium? I've seen small birds pecking around bullet woulds of recently shot deer.

the comments are priceless.
especially the one - "Aaaaaah! Nature is terrible. The more I know about it, the more terrible it is."

LOL welcome to the real word lady!

They are usually after protein. When I was in grad school at Texas A&M there was a lot of research being done on deer nutrition by the Wildlife Disease Unit at the vet school. They had a couple of pens full of deer on low-protein diets. The feed they used was pelleted and birds, primarily blackbirds and grackles, would fly into the pens and eat the leavings. Several of the deer learned to stalk and knock the birds down and then eat them.

Protein is often low or even clinically deficient in deer winter forage. Deer actually need carbohydrates for energy worse than they need protein at those times. But if they are starved for protein, they will opportunistically get it when and where they can.

Cows will do similar "atrocities" if they need the protein...

They eat fish and feed on gut piles as well.


Fish Eating
Meat Eaters

I have heard stories about deer eating fish, an image that is hard to get out of my mind. Seems nothing in nature is a given, herbivores and insectivores all "wander" outside of their normal diet on occasion or as needed. That's just nature being itself. Still the idea of a buck with a fish in it's mouth...


Before you know it someone will be hyping "Fish Crush" if you're not using it you better hope your neighbors aren't.

Birds eat lots of deer. They're just fighting back!

I've got a couple hawks that have been working a deer over for a week or so.
They look like winged footballs they are so fat

One of my sisters-in-law used to have a rabbit that would eat all the ham and bologna it could get.

A Yukon, Canada study showed the number one predator on snowshoe hares under the age of 2 weeks was.....the red squirrel. I've seen them feeding on grouse and small mammal carcasses.

I got downgraded a grade in Ornithology class in college by the prof for insisting I'd seen ravens actively hunting voles or frogs in my brothers overgrown homestead fields outside Fairbanks. The Dyke bitch insisted they were only scavengers.

Probably didn't help that I sat in the front row by choice and occasionally fell asleep. A night job will do that...

I witnessed a pine squirrel chowing down on a dead robin. held it in his hands like a corn cob.

On a side note, a bird cud doesn't sound too appealing.

las, I was sitting squirrel hunting in the fall and thousands of black birds set down in the woods taking a migration break. There was one on a limb above me with a small frog in its beak. They really tore that place up. Bet that place was pretty bug free after they left. I have seen blue jays pull small birds out of nests too.