Investigating a Sora

A hand-written note attached to the young waterbird read "death by natural causes." I found that to be quite dubious. Just earlier I had noticed a crimson pool beginning to fill the corner of a Ziploc bag, seemingly flowing from the neck of this thawing Sora. What then had happened to the bird? Since until now she had been frozen for some time, this was my first chance to investigate. 

Notice some red staining on the feathers above the Sora's shoulder.

This was scheduled as a taxidermy project, so I had bountiful time and tools to look into the Sora's death. I gingerly pulled the bird out from her bag, then dabbed her feathers as dry as possible. Her neck didn't feel broken. More blood began to surface, but it definitely came from her beak. I was quick to place some cotton in her mouth before it made more of a mess, and then worked my way internally.

*GRAPHIC IMAGE TO FOLLOW*

Moving through the internal anatomy of a bird becomes much more
difficult with bodily injuries. This humerus had to be clipped and cleaned
so that no further damage would occur while mounting.

I made a long cut over the Sora's keel then pushed skin back from tissue with my fingers. After just a minute of prying, I felt that something in the left wing was awry. The humerus bone had been pulverized, and the skin around it bore a large hole. Following up along that side of the neck, the tissues had obviously been damaged. I didn't have to dig much further into the case of the mystery death to realize that the Sora had experienced some sort of blow. This was enough for me grab an eraser remove "natural causes" from the record.