A friend of mine from Damascus, MD, owned a young, captive-bred African Gray Parrot, 
and had lovingly had her as a companion for three years. She recently told me that she 
tragically lost the parrot this summer. The bird escaped when the wind blew open a door 
while she was out of her cage. My friend spent all afternoon trying to call her back, and 
finally found her perched in a high tree at the edge of a small clump of woods. As it was 
getting dark, and the parrot had moved in towards the trunk of the tree and hunkered 
down for a "safe" night-time roost, my friend decided to return at dawn the next morning 
to lure the parrot down with food and her favorite toys.

When she went back at dawn, she said that the woods were "too quiet". The parrot was 
no longer visible in the tree. She went into the woods, calling for the bird, but then found 
the bloody remains of just the parrot's wings on the ground. Neighbors said they had seen 
Red-Tailed Hawks in this wooded area before.

What would the most likely nocturnal predator be? I wouldn't think a Red-Tail would take 
a pigeon-sized bird in a wooded area after dusk or early in the AM. I'd expect a Coopers, 
perhaps - what times of day do they hunt? Do owls prey on perched birds? Or would it 
more likely have been a mammalian predator?

My friend was devastated, and wonders if she should have camped out beneath the tree...

Mary LaMarca
Silver Spring