Saw a Headless Pigeon this Morning
 

Thread title says it all I guess. A pigeon body with the head cleanly removed on the side of the bike path. Maybe a cat would do that? I don't know. No sign of the head anywhere. Filed among the "strangest things you've seen or your commute" or "roadkill"?

Another victim of the spoke guillotine?

Maybe he was killed for his helmet... or would still be alive had he been wearing his helmet. :)

BTW this would have been interesting if the pigeon was still flying, but headless and lying beside the road does not do it for me.

It's almost certainly the remains of a hawk's dinner. I forget which, but one species of hawk (Cooper's or Sharp-Shinned maybe?) eats the bird's head and leaves the rest. Anyway, headless birds are the calling card of one particular hawk species.

Barn Owl. Had one of those bastards take out about 12 of my chickens once. Only thing missing was their heads. Vital component though....

:) I still maintain gloves are more important for pigeon safety than helmets.

How much sustenance can you get from a pigeon head? It's obviously meant to be a warning to the rest of the pigeon population.

Was Ozzie in town over the weekend? yuck.

Sorry about that. I liked to eat something crunchy on my commute in the morning.

We have a peregrine falcon living near our office who often leaves headless birds in our courtyard here in Seattle. Pretty cool.

You are riding too slow.

Ichabod, um, Pigeon?

It could be the Peregrine Falcon that I was referring to (or even an owl like danarnold suggested). I just don't remember for certain. I went to a program a few weeks ago at the Wildlife Science Center and they had an expert on birds-of-prey there. They brought out birds and the expert from the DNR talked about each species. There were hawks, owls, falcons, eagles... When he was talking about one particular species he said that headless birds were its calling card. I remembered it because I occasionally find headless birds in my yard and it struck a chord with me.

We had a cat that would catch birds and eat just the heads. I guess he only liked the crunchy parts. It used to gross out my wife.

We brought Ozzie in for questioning, but he swears he doesn't remember.:(

The head is where the tasty, tasty brains live.

My GFs old cat (I'm talking 18 years old) still kills bunnies and eats their brains.

Pigeon zombies?

"brrrraaaiins!"

Hawks. We had them in the tower of the building where I work. One Halloween a few years ago a headless pigeon landed at my feet as I was entering the building. I turned around and went home.

Heads up! (as in a larger bird took off with it)

The past few years we've had a lot of rabbits in our area. Until this year. Sure enough, two houses away, hanging out in a backyard tree, is an owl. We didn't notice him but our neighbors told us.

I'm a little worried about our pug, even though she's "big boned."

What is the location of the bike path? Rochester has three resident Peregrine Falcons and people come from all over the world to watch them.

Paul

I wonder if birds of prey do this cause there isn't much meat on flying birds; unlike, for example turkeys, partridges, domestic chickens. Plus if they did go after the body, they'd have to spend a lot of time defeathering it which would make them vulnerable to ground attack by bigger animals.

I saw a headless deer at the side of the road last week. If a peregrine falcon got that, I may have to rethink this bicycle commuting thing.

Peregrine falcons can do that as described in the food habits of these critters.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/lincolnshire/co..._feature.shtml

The falcons that you are referring to live on a high rise building downtown. There is a web cam filming the nest. I was on the Erie canal bike path pretty far from there, but you are right that falcons live around here. I did see one swoop down and pick up a rabbit once when I was driving. I never knew that those birds would eat heads of other birds, though.