Night time garden activities are, understandably, at a minimum. Such exploits are reserved for the stealthy denizens of the dark hours. Most happenings go unnoticed. The occasional paw print in dirt, an overturned flower pot or the uprooted plant the only signature of their nocturnal pursuits. Well………almost……. This early bird got more than a worm/seed: ( photo / image / picture from Jerry Sullivan's Garden ) ( photo / image / picture from Jerry Sullivan's Garden ) ( photo / image / picture from Jerry Sullivan's Garden ) This dove was not being careful. Or the cat was unusually cunning. Jerry
Hmmm...we do have hawks in the area. Perhaps our local feline was not complicit. Less feathers=cat, more feathers = hawk? Such an encounter would be rare. Our neighbor did witness a chipmunk, just after eating an acorn, become the afternoon snack for a red tailed hawk. The near-silent beating of wings, the only sound as the hawk left with its prey. Jerry
I agree looks like the work of a raptor we get a visit from a sparrow hark on a Farley regular basis and if he/she's lucky I find feathers scattered about. in fact on one occasion in the act of trying to get lunch the hawk got itself trapped between the open greenhouse door and greenhouse which I leave open most of the year to keep ventilated which also means rescuing small birds that fly in luckily no harm done as yet
We have a hawk that regularly hunts our pasture. He sits on top of an ashe juniper, surveying the possibilities. When he swoops down and hits the ground, we all but cheer--it means one fewer mouse trying to spend the winter in our house! He rarely takes birds, perhaps because we have too much cover for the smaller birds to hide in. I agree that the feathers look more like those left behind after a hawk's kill. A hawk tears up the bird so it can eat. A cat will just dismember a bird and leave fewer feathers scattered all over. Now that we've discussed that, anyone for lunch?
Our Sparrowhawk leaves a circle of feathers like that when it feeds on one of 'my' birds. I doubt if it was a cat as they are far messier when they make a kill.
Our coopers hawk is a lot cleaner than that one...you don't see much of anything left besides a few feathers when he swoops down and starts eating his lunch here...he might have help from cats with the clean-up...
