Where do birds go to die?

Question

Very rarely do you see dead birds

Answer 1

How long do birds live?
One might suppose that this question could be answered – indeed it often is answered – by a simple table of ages per species. Any such table is however likely to be very misleading.

A bit of background
Animals vary enormously in their reproductive strategies. Some – such as most fish – provide no care or protection to their offspring, but produce immense numbers of eggs in the hope that a few will survive. (These are known to ecologists as r-selected species.) Others produce only a few offspring but give them care and protection so that a higher proportion of those few manage to survive. (These are known as K-selected species.)

Humans are right at the extreme “K” end of the spectrum. Most humans, at least in the developed world, live long enough to have children.

Birds also tend somewhat towards the “K” end but not so far as humans. Passerines in particular (which include most common garden birds) produce large numbers of offspring, the majority of which do not suvive to adulthood. Great **** for example produce clutches of 8-12 eggs. If all these survived to reproduce, Europe would be knee-deep in Great **** within a decade or so. But many die either in the nest or soon after fledging. Many more do not make it through their first winter.

Average age
So what’s this all got to do with ages?

If you calculate the average age of a bird species, the calculation is dominated by the 70% to 80% of birds that die very young. The fact is that most bird species have an average lifespan of just a few months.

Once birds get through their first winter, the mortality rate drops considerably. For passerines, typically 30%-40% of adult birds die each year, with larger species living longer than smaller ones. This means that of those birds which survive their first winter the average age is going to be somewhere around three years: more for crows, less for wrens.

Other birds have better survival rates. For some seabirds, the death rate drops to not much more than 10%, and the average age of those birds which survive their first winter might be nearer to eight or nine years.

Maximum age
When considering highest known ages, a simple list of figures is highly misleading. For humans (at least in the developed world) the highest age known is only a bit more than 1.5 times the average. For birds, the highest age known is likely, at least for well-studied species, to be extremely atypical of the species as a whole – it might be 30 or 40 times the average or even more! (And for less well-studied species, it could be largely a matter of chance whether one happens to come across a very old bird or not.) However, for what it’s worth, I do give some figures below.

Incidentally, captive birds often live to greater ages than wild birds, and the oldest definitely recorded age for a bird is 80 years for a Sulphur-crested Cockatoo at London Zoo.

Breeding age
An arguably more interesting figure, because it actually says something meaningful about the birds, is the age at which a bird first breeds.

For most, if not all, passerines, this is at one year. For non-passerines it is much more variable. It is also one year for birds like pheasants and pigeons. But ducks range from one to four years, while the first-breeding age is three or four years for gulls, and up to six years for some of the larger birds of prey.

Death Birds : are mysterious creatures that are in fact a variety of bat that has a penchant for human blood. This is how they attained their name death birds. The archeologist Byron de Prorok is said to have learned of this phenomenon in 1936, while traveling through southern Ethiopia. The death birds were said to inhabit Devil's Cave - a cursed cavern near Lekempti. It was here that de Prorok encountered the bats.

This was a tough nut to crack, butI did it. I had always assumed that most birds migrate South for the winter and eventually pick out a lovely tropical spot to while away their autumn years. As it turns out, that's not exactly true.
To find the answer to your question, I browsed birdwatching sites, skimmed through ornithology resources, and even staked out some birding Webcams, but with no luck. Finally, throwing subtlety to the wind, I searched on your exact question, "Where do birds go to die?" and came up with a nice result -- a fellow syndicated advice columnist.

"Birds, like many other creatures, will seek secluded, out-of-the way places when they're feeling sick. Sometimes, rest and seclusion help them heal. But if they die, very often they won't be found in their hideouts.

Of course, in nature, things work in a strange tandem. Predators, like cats and foxes, can usually seek out these hideouts for prey. And often, these predators will take the prey back to feed their young, which is why it's so rare to find the remains of dead birds."

Answer 2

Birds usually reach the ground before they die, and because they know that they are vulnerable on the ground they hide. The bird is sometimes carried off by a weasel, stoat, or cat, but more usually they just die and the carcass is soon disposed of by crows, magpies, seagulls, or maggots.
Dead seabirds are quickly eaten by other seabirds and crabs.

Answer 3

I don't think they pick a spot per say. I just have seen birds hit cars as they
fly by, get shot, and just stay on their perch and die and fall off.

Answer 4

Actually I've seen four this year. Two were outside office buildings and two were murdered by my house mates (the furry kind with retractable claws). Then there are the ones I haven't counted that get hit by cars.

Unfortunately the dead are always with us.

Answer 5

I have twice found dead birds, without any sign of injury, laying on tree branches.

Answer 6

Capastrano

Answer 7

Seagulls go out to sea to die. cats kill lots of birds. mainly though they die of old age. they tend to die in forests or actually in nests high up trees. if you haven't seen them that's why really.

Answer 8

Thats because the bird of death (actually looks a bit like a raven, skinnier tho), comes and takes them! silly :)

Answer 9

They're not fussy, they'll die anywhere. Cats and Crows finish off the carcasses rather efficiently which is why you don't see them very often.

Answer 10

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