is the efficiency mechanical or animal?

i had the opportunity to have a look at a couple of industrial fields that were home to dense yellow #2 field corn last season...

and mostly what i found were cobs neatly stripped of kernels by the combine harvester...

along with a scattering of kernels in a number of places the combine obviously missed...

compared to fileds like this one that i have seen in the past today's were remarkably free of corn kernels...so it may be that combine harvesters have dramatically improved in efficiency or, this being january, wildlife may have been doing a remarkable job of gleaning the fields...one seems as likely as another, however given the severity of the cold in the last week or so, wildlife may have been doing as much efficient clean-up as any harvester...

along the berms of the fields i found an old acquaintance from the campus garden...carolina horse nettle...brought some fruits home to grow in containers as well as a few kernels of field corn to plant in the spring just to see what ( if anything ) happens...we will see...

and, lastly, plastic is everywhere...a local resident told me "people think our road is a garbage dump."