Was this a cat?

Astraeus

Woke up to this scene this morning. Nothing but feathers. Is that a cat? When I've seen birds attacked by cats before, they've taken away the whole thing before dealing with it elsewhere. I've only seen birds take birds apart in situ like this.

Alan Clark2 in Liverpool

It might be a Sparrow Hawk.

Dovefromabove

Another vote here for Sparrowhawk ... they often just take the fleshy breast meat.

Astraeus

Thank you both. I did wonder.

No sign of flesh anywhere, only feathers left. Which at least made the job of cleaning up slightly less unpleasant...

Jenny_Aster

Another vote for a hawk; whilst doing washing-up duties, a hawk must have grabbed a pigeon in mid-flight above my kitchen window. There were feathers reigning down all over the place, which made me wonder if birds have a mechanism to release their feathers when traumatised?

Hostafan1

I'd say woodpigeon . Now an EX woodpigeon

Crazybeelady

I had a sparrow hawk come to the garden once and he caught a blackbird and proceeded to stand on it and rip all its feathers out before flying off with the body. It was both exciting and devastating at the same time 😧

Hostafan1

Crazybeelady said:

I had a sparrow hawk come to the garden once and he caught a blackbird and proceeded to stand on it and rip all its feathers out before flying off with the body. It was both exciting and devastating at the same time 😧

indeed so, but at least it was eaten. Cats just kill for the fun of it.

bcpathome

It happens all the time in our garden , I used to blame next doors cats till I saw it happen for myself .And now we have so many red kites here in Buckinghamshire it happens more and more they just wheel around catching birds randomly and there are feathers everywhere.