I see dead things

I found a nice country road drive-by cache today. It was planted by a 7 year old boy. Took the cache to the car to sign the log and leave swag. Put it back and headed for home. A couple of hours at home and I decide to head out to do some shopping. I get into the car and there's the cache's logbook on my passenger seat. Oh no.

I decide to go back to the cache and afterwards do some quick grocery shopping. I drive up to the cache. I step toward the cache with logbook in hand. I get startled.

There's a small coyote next to the tree. It's sleeping...no it doesn't seem to be breathing and it's slumped over the logs next to the tree. I toss a stick near it's snout just to be sure it isn't sleeping. No reaction. Poor little thing. I gingerly replace the cache in the nook at the base of the tree and wonder how I didn't see it a couple of hours ago.

Originally, I approached from the north and was so focussed on the cache I didn't see it. This time I approached from the south. Maybe, but it's highly unlikely, the coyote perished at the tree sometime after I left and before I arrived. So it wasn't there when I first visited.

I'll have to tell the young CO that the cache is going to be inaccessible soon due to the deterioration of the carcass. It currently had no odour but that won't last long.