Drought and prairie fire produce gourmet food: Crested Caracaras are feeding on roasted turtles, King Rail on dead Bullfrog and Gar. Dead animal bodies are piled around the drying water holes, fish are dying from the lack of oxygen.

When one is visiting Attwater Chicken NWR lately, death can be seen everywhere and, sometimes, piles of dead animals are lying on the top of each other. The last managed fire on the Refuge exposed and roasted many already dead animals and stopped in their tracks these few that were trying to find a new water source somewhere else.

A few birds like Crested Caracara and vultures are in heaven finding plenty of food lying around. Here, a juvenile Crested Caracara is feeding on a ‘roasted’ slider, on the snapper and fish.

Roasted animal carcasses can be seen everywhere around. Many sliders, armadillo, even gars.

Frogs seem to be practically gone but I found one (maybe the last one) a very large Bullfrog that was dying on dried out mud.

Many snakes, small and large, are barely alive and are showing signs of advanced starvation. They will come to remaining sources of water, drink and swim, but have a problem finding food. They were so weak that it was possible to get very close to them and they did not even try to escape or fight.

One stubborn King Rail did not leave the drying area until the last moment before the water disappeared completely and stayed close to a very small mud hole, filled with decomposing animal matter, the only water left from a large wetland area before the drought. The rail seems to feed mostly on dead animals. Here it is eating a large Bullfrog, and probably ate the accessible parts of a dead gar head before. Sometimes the rail was lucky to catch a very small fish (how this fish survived in this stinking hole is behind my comprehension) and it was also hunting many very small water critters I had not identified.

There are a few birds that are finding food on a dry, burned prairie. Many Vesper Sparrows, White-crowned Sparrows and Savannah Sparrows can be seen looking for food between the ashes. Like many other sparrow species the White-crowned is performing a 'double scratch' when searching for food, as is the Vesper Sparrow. Savannah Sparrows are coming together to the small holes with water to drink, often by sticking their beaks into the wet mud. Also a few American Pipits and some Mourning Doves, meadowlarks and grackles can be seen feeding on the burned grounds. The American Kestrel, Eastern Phoebe and Loggerhead Shrike keep hunting from the fences. Flocks of Bobwhite are looking for cover in small, dried vegetation islands between burned areas.

They are many hawks trying to hunt including Northern Harriers trying to chase sparrows, but I never saw them catch one. An Eastern Mole had a very unlucky day when it left its underground hole during a midday and a White-tailed Hawk took it at once.

American Bison are feeding on what looks like a ‘natural hay’, as most grass on the prairie is completely dry. But, in fact, these animals are hardly ‘wild’ and have full time access to a managed water source and supplemental food. I have seen a dead deer carcass but close to the road and it probably was hit by a passing car.

I do not know how much worse it can get but we are already seeing quite devastating effects of the drought on a lot of wildlife. I do not have time to process or even check all photos I took during the past several weeks and, I have to admit, I am working on them without much enthusiasm; memories of what I have seen are too sad.