Wednesday, April 11, 2007

Gory detail


This Golden Plover was at Maxey pits on 7.4.07. Clearly freshly killed, judging by the bright red blood and still intact organs (I'm not much cop at anatomy: lungs? heart?), the wings, breast bone and a couple of organs were all that remained – plus a bit of gravel stuck to the gore. It was on top of one of the five-foot high hay bales by the 'hard-stand' on the road to Etton.
There were no feathers scattered about, so I presume the bird was killed and plucked and largely devoured somewhere else (a gravelly place I would suggest, Watson), then moved up to the bale to finish orf, before the killer was disturbed.
Sparrowhawks come through here regularly, but then a Peregrine has also been seen a few times (i've seen one or more around the pit a few times myself in the last couple of years). I like to think a Peregrine was the killer, and it somehow seems romantic that a Peregrine was sat a few feet away from where I do my regular patch-watching...

[By the way, the hand belongs to local birder Chris Lines.]

1 comment:

Katie said...

I watched a female Merlin catch a Golden Plover last week. A gang of crows mobbed the Merlin which dropped the plover which was then pursued by the crows. It looked like it got away, though...