Three Dead Birds in My Back Yard Today

SeaBreeze

SeaBreeze

Endlessly Groovin'
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I go out everyday to pick up after my dog, so I was out yesterday. My cat goes out very little, in and out for minutes at a time, usually under supervision, and never at night. Also, he has never shown any aggression toward birds at all, not really a killer, just quietly watches without too much excitement at all.

Anyhoo, this morning my husband said he saw a dead bird near our tree close to the kitchen window, so I went out alone to dispose of it. It's head was pretty mangled, only part there. Walking around, I saw another dead bird in the garden area, same type of bird, just a medium sized sparrow or something, again with head bloodied and partially gone.

As I walked around to look some more, there was a third dead bird on top of a little wooden wall by the compost pile, this bird had it's rear end torn apart and mangled, the head was intact. I tell you, I started to get the feeling of some type of a horror movie, just too weird. I looked all around and thankfully didn't find anymore.

This had to have happened last night or early this morning, when my pets were still inside. There are some wildlife around like coyote and foxes, but they'd have to jump a 6 foot fence to get in the yard. My husband thinks a stray cat may have come in to do the killings, but it's so odd that even a cat that was a hunter would be able to take three birds out so quickly like that. I dunno, still scratching my head on this one....hopefully no more dead birds in the morning.
 

How very strange SB..you're right a cat would have to be very quick to get all 3 birds at once and it's hardly likely to have happened at night either.. or on a wall for that matter ..

The very weirdest thing I ever witnessed was after my divorce I was seeing a guy for a few years and we arrived back at his house one afternoon, to find a huge sack of dead pigeons thrown onto his doorstep. There must have been over 30 birds in there...it was the most shocking thing I've ever encountered. He had no enemies that he knew of..and he never did get to the bottom of how it happened or why...as you say, it was just like being part of a horror movie!!
 
The 'wall' is just knee high Hollydolly, but still, strange that it wasn't just on the ground. A sack of dead pigeons would have really freaked me out, that's wild! :eek:
 

Cannot begin to envision all those dead pigeons, Holly. How horrible.
The poor little sparrows, SB. A cat would have carried them off. Blue Jays are brutal. There was a section of sidewalk, near our house, growing up...that no one dared to walk on. The Blue Jays, that had possession of a overhanging tree, would swoop down and peck at the intruder's head. I was and stil teriffied of them.
 
SeaBreeze said:
I go out everyday to pick up after my dog, so I was out yesterday. My cat goes out very little, in and out for minutes at a time, usually under supervision, and never at night. Also, he has never shown any aggression toward birds at all, not really a killer, just quietly watches without too much excitement at all.

Anyhoo, this morning my husband said he saw a dead bird near our tree close to the kitchen window, so I went out alone to dispose of it. It's head was pretty mangled, only part there. Walking around, I saw another dead bird in the garden area, same type of bird, just a medium sized sparrow or something, again with head bloodied and partially gone.

As I walked around to look some more, there was a third dead bird on top of a little wooden wall by the compost pile, this bird had it's rear end torn apart and mangled, the head was intact. I tell you, I started to get the feeling of some type of a horror movie, just too weird. I looked all around and thankfully didn't find anymore.

This had to have happened last night or early this morning, when my pets were still inside. There are some wildlife around like coyote and foxes, but they'd have to jump a 6 foot fence to get in the yard. My husband thinks a stray cat may have come in to do the killings, but it's so odd that even a cat that was a hunter would be able to take three birds out so quickly like that. I dunno, still scratching my head on this one....hopefully no more dead birds in the morning.
Click to expand...

Fencing.
Coyotes are AMAZING athletes and very smart. Most can clear-jump without touching a 5 foot fence. (As you can see in this photo.) They can jump and get over a 6-7ft fence barely touching it with their paws – we’ve seen it live, it looks like they are levitating! Here’s a video of a coyote leaping like a cat onto a 6ft wall: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3at0R8QZWE (the leap happens at the very end).
 
Rarely see anything like a BlueJay Nancy, but unfortunately Magpies and black crows seem to dominate the yard. There are Robins that are sometimes able to have their nests and babies there. It amazes me sometimes how aggressive the birds can be with each other, very unsettling. Right now I know for a fact that the Magpies have their nests, likely with eggs in them. I see them chasing squirrels down the pine/spruce trees. Although we see a dead bird now and then, I've never seen so many at once and so chewed up.

Jim, I have not doubt that a coyote could clear the fence if he wanted to, but in the 35 years we've been here, have never had one come in someone's back yard. They are assertive, but so far haven't crossed the fence barrier. Even then, seems odd that they'd be lucky enough to kill 3 in one night. Also, even though my dog is old and doesn't hear well anymore, he's used to the wildlife beyond our fence, and I'm sure he would have been roused in the middle of the night with something like that going on. We've had our bedroom window open a bit at night, where he sleeps.

Whether a cat, bird or other wild animal, seems weird to have 3 in one night/morning like that. :confused: Interesting video Jim, thanks. Our coyotes look fatter, more like huskies, but I'm sure they're just as agile.
 
We have a hawk or two circling our high rise towers and I have been told that they like to eat pigeons that hang around the towers, being cliff dwellers and high rise towers are like cliffs.

Could a hawk have done the damage to the birds?
 
We have some Red-Tailed hawks around, but I think they would have carried the bird off, and probably not just killed three and left them?


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I'm not sure where in the US you're located, but the avian flu is a serious issue and has been found in wild birds. The midwest is dealing with it, and it's most likely spread to farm operations by wild birds. Our county DNR is asking anyone who finds dead birds with no obvious cause of death to let them know so they can examine the remains.
In Iowa alone we've put down more than 20 million turkeys, chickens and ducks.
 
I know, the avian bird flu is a terrible thing now in the US, DoItMyself. We're in Colorado, but these birds didn't just die, they were killed.
 

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