Date: Tue, 28 May 2002 11:57:28 -0700 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Lynette Fullerton Subject: Question about dead waxwings In-Reply-To: <006a01c205e5$2d0c36a0$a4772144@SCARP> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Hi all, I was just walking across the hospital campus (Crownsville Hospital Center, AA County), and came upon a horrible sight. At the base of a huge tulip poplar was a dead cedar waxwing; I looked around and found two more, also dead. They didn't look like they had been dead for long. They also all looked like adults - by which I mean their feathers all looked like adult feathers, and their markings (as far as I could tell) seemed like adult markings. None of them were intact (I'm sorry if this is too graphic - it was a grisly scene and the description probably won't get any better) - the first one I found in several pieces, and the other two had had their heads severed, and I couldn't find the heads at all. Again, I apologize for the horrible details, but I just wanted to describe it so that maybe somebody could help me figure out just what went on. Was this the work of crows? Would they be able to attack and kill healthy adult birds (if that's that these were - if they were fledglings they were awfully well-developed)? Or an accipiter? If it had been just the one bird that's what I would have thought - but three, all within a few feet of each other??? There was a lot of CEDW activity going on overhead while I was 'playing detective' - they were very vocal (as they usually are, granted), and I also saw (and heard) crows about. Thinking back, this is also the spot where I found a dead bluebird baby last week. So can anybody help me make sense of all of this? I know it won't really help to be able to point the finger at something, I still would like to have some clue as to what happened... Thanks. ===== Lynette Fullerton Odenton, Anne Arundel Co., MD l_fullerton_1999@yahoo.com "I think I could turn and live with animals, they are so placid and self-contained, I stand and look at them long and long." --Walt Whitman, from Leaves of Grass __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! - Official partner of 2002 FIFA World Cup http://fifaworldcup.yahoo.com ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================