To all:

My first thought based on where found and the presence of multiple heads was
that some one found the birds and had them with them to show them to others
and changed their mind and tossed them before getting on or after getting
off the Metro. Possibly a hunter, or poacher?, somewhere kept the body and
tossed heads, wings, etc., as, like with doves  and quail all you eat is the
breast.  But you normally just rip it off and toss the rest of the body.
Anyway, if some one found them and was intrigued by their look, really an
absurd looking bird for sure, and their long pliable bill, they may have
picked them up sort of for show and tell. I could see a single head and a
wing or feathers from a raptor attack, owl or hawk, as woodcock are out and
about now before dark but not multiple heads unless it was in a Great Horned
Owls' nest or similar.

I do not know how much hunting of Woodcocks goes on any more around DC Metro
area or what the season info is on them. Also, there just are not as many as
there were. It was not uncommon to shoot an occasional "Timberdoodle" or
Snipe 50 years ago when hunting Bobwhite, especially if you had bird dogs as
it it was a little easier to find and then flush them. But try finding a
Bobwhite any more. None in PA.

35 years ago there was a small stand of trees with some wet area across the
street from the Pentagon, now a huge shopping/apartment complex, that had
seasonal displaying Woodcocks; but save stumbling on a nest, it is pretty
hard to find multiple ones, especially in a built up area.

I do not see some one coming across a dead bird just cutting off its head
and you do not come across two dead birds unless someone put them there. And
then there was the wing. They presumably would take the whole bird wherever
for whatever reason. Many people would see that bird, wiggle the bill, and
think it is an aberration or try to learn more about it maybe.

I know of one instance where seamen or a boat, finding an exhausted
Crossbill on a boat off the Atlantic coast declared, "that bird is
defrormed," before "putting it out of its misery."

Mike O'Brien
Fairfield, Adams County, PA

On Fri, Feb 29, 2008 at 9:54 AM, Tim Boucher <> wrote:

> My question when I heard about this was not what raptor, but where around
> that area would there be woodcocks...close enough that a Peregrine or
> other
> raptor would carry the prey? The closest open fields I can think of in
> Rock
> Creek Park near East West Highway (at least a mile away) and maybe Sligo
> Creek? That is the mystery to me - not whether there are raptors in the
> area, but why there are woodcocks that close to downtown Silver Spring.
> I'm
> also wondering if it could in fact be a diurnal raptor...woodcocks migrate
> at night and are  active, in terms of display behavior, in the
> evening...so
> owl seems like a better bet.
>
> Ellen Paul
>
>