Came across an interesting scene in the neighbors driveway yesterday. A male cardinal that had just expired, small feathers scattered in the immediate area, he had a beak full of breast feathers still in his mouth. The posture and snow evidence was such as to indicate he was alone and still somewhat functional when he died. No broken bones or visible trauma. My first thought was he maybe got hit and pinned in the grill of their car and fell loose when they got home, but the feathers in the beak more strongly suggest a cardinal battle, which would be ironic since I never saw more than one pair of cardinals all winter in my neighborhood. Though I have a sharpie hunting my feeders the past few days, they always take their whole victims with them and won't leave dinner behind, and the cardinal did not looked plucked. I've certainly seen some nasty bird battles over the years, but never cardinals and never heard of passerines battling to the death. If you have seen such an episode, please share it with me.
Randy Frederickson Willmar Middle School ---- Join or Leave mou-net: http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=mou-net Archives: http://lists.umn.edu/archives/mou-net.html
