A neighbor approached my husband two days ago to tell him that she found five dead robins in her yard over the course of one week.
Each had its head removed from its body which remained intact. No heads were found.
It also appears that the killings happened at night because the bodies were found in the morning.
Robins are the quintessential early bird. American Robins are common sights on lawns. “Robins are popular birds for their warm orange breast, cheery song, and early appearance at the end of winter.”
What animal would decapitate one of the most popular birds and why?
My husband and I are stumped. Does anyone have any clues? Do you suspect feral cats? Feral cats do live in our area. Or do you suspect another wild animal is the culprit?
Tell us what you think.
FERAL CATS! They prey upon animals at night. They love to play with animals and destroy them! Don’t feed them and they won’t come into your area.
Dogs kill birds. My dog used to do that. He would grab it so quickly and kill it. He never tore the heads off. That part is strange. I would set up a camera at night to see exactly what animal is killing the robins.
This is nature. I love nature but I hate seeing the awful things animals do to each other. I can’t watch shows on tv showing animals being run down, attacked and being eaten alive.
I can’t stand feral cats. It isn’t that I hat cats, it is the people who let their house cats roam free and turn into feral cats. There are house cats who can’t survive or barely survive outside. They aren’t meant for the otside world. Because of the moronic way of thinking among these cat owners, these pets turn into feral cats and kill to survive. Cats can be cruel in their method of killing.
That is why I stand feral cats. Even though it isn’t their fault, they cause alot of damage to my property and I’m sick of it! I don’t agree with managing colonies because they walk all over my property. I am a responsible pet owner now I have to clean up after more pets that aren’t mine!
Does that sound fair! Of course not!
Do eat chicken?? Well so do cats! It’s called “nature’
The answer is cats, cats, cats , cats!
cats wouldn’t eat the head and leave the body untouched.
Cats that people throw out of their homes because they don’t want to be responsible for them anymore. They need food but are aslo known with ‘playing’ with animals they kill! It comes to irresponsible people, as usual.
I am in agreement with most of the comments. Feral cats. There are too many of them due to owners’ recklnessness and carelessness about their cats and the TNR movement. If you ask a TNR proponent, I’m sure they’ll disagree. They can’t seem to deal with the truth. I love cats but I don’t agree with TNR. It’s my opinion but I’m giving an answer that is most likely true about who is decapitating robins.
At least TNR stops more feral cats from being born. Would you rather kill all homeless pets? Would you say the same of homeless people? And humans kill animals for food & sport (fun) too. So having such an attitude toward an innocent animal begs for a similar attitude towards humans.
Thank you
I think the most likely and educated answer is feral cat(s). It’s too logical since cats kill their prey and they like to go on “hunts” at night. I don’t have any other answer than this.
Perhaps deviate humans are doing this. You never know these days. Evil minds start with animals and do horrible things to them. It’s a thought.
FERAL CATS!
Here’s some info from anther website that I found interesting. While most here want to blame cats, I think more thought should be given to the answer first.
The following is not from me but information that may be able to shed more light on the killings of the robins.
“Raccoons, writes Anderson, are also known to “prey on birds and their eggs. The heads of adult birds are usually bitten off and left some distance from the body.
And it seems to be common knowledge within the birding community that certain species of birds decapitate their prey:
“In urban and suburban settings grackles are the most likely culprits, although jays, magpies, and crows will decapitate small birds, too. Screech-owls and pygmy-owls also decapitate their prey, but, intending to eat them later, they usually cache their victims out of sight.”
“There is little you can do to discourage screech-owls if only because they do their killing under cover of darkness. However, you can recognize their handiwork by looking for partially plucked carcasses of songbirds with the heads missing… Corvids—crows, ravens, jays, and magpies—are well known for their raids on birds’ nests to take eggs and nestlings.” (Interestingly, the author, David M. Bird, was among Marra’s nine co-authors on “What Conservation Biologists Can Do.”)
Balogh, Ryder, and Marra also point out that another “potential nest predator,” the gray squirrel, was more common at the Opal Daniels and Spring Park sites than at the Bethesda site. [1] And roughly three to five times as abundant as cats, based on researcher sightings. Yet the squirrels aren’t mentioned at all in the Smithsonian story.
Instead of so quickly blaming cats or feral cats because many dislike them, the culprit could be a squirrel or owl or another animal, I’d suggest to be more open-minded before blaming feral cats. One or more could be culprit (s) or not at all. At least, give alittle more thought before answering so quickly.
Any wild animal at night.
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In the past two weeks I have had two decapitated little sparrows in my back yard, very upsetting to me, for I have bird feeders and they are used by a large variety of birds from finches, sparrows, to grackles, blue jays, and many more, I am wondering now from reading all the comments if it isn’t the grackles?? they visit the feeders frequently with their young and feed them.
I just had found two small dead birds without their heads. Very upsetting. What kinds of bird would do that!
An owl can do this. Nature is beautiful but it’s also very harsh. I just had a robin lose all of her eggs to another bird who took them while she was flying around.
Not a feral cat…..they eat their prey because the are hungry. Most likely house cats or racoons killing birds on their nests to get to the eggs.
Exactly, Thank you!
Sorry guys. My bet is on birds. I’ve seen a crow decapitate a sparrow right in front of my eyes. The sparrow got knocked by a car, still alive but very limited. The crow swept in, grabbed the sparrow, flew ontop of a car roof and just pecked away. I couldn’t belive my eyes. I thought the crow was eating the sparrow. After 30 seconds or less, the crow decapitated the sparrow, and flew off with it’s head…
I believe the owner of the car may have suspected someone was doing witchcraft on him, or something…
I had never seen somthing like that before…. i wonder why the crow took the head…
To all the cat haters, you are totally wrong!!
Cats play with and mangle their prey. If a bird has been cleanly decapitated it is another bird.
Hawks, falcons and owls all kill their prey that way. It is the easiest, quickest way to kill because they do not like wasting energy. They swoop down, and with one snap they cut the spinal cord and decapitate. They do it to smaller birds and rodents.
That explains the night/early morning occurrences
I see I am kind of a late comer to this. I have now seen 3 decapitated sparrows in my back yard. Two last year, and just today, another. It is so disturbing to me but I get this world is a terrible place and things are not as they should be. I had thoughts of it being squirrels. We have gray squirrels that eat alongside the sparrows and rabbits. I am still uncertain-but it’s really bothering me. I am thinking it’s another bird of somekind. Uggg! I am so bummed out. Anyway, I just needed to ‘voice’ it and now Ill try hard to let this go. Thanks for having a place to learn and share.
I found a dead bird in my above ground pool, shredded to pieces, its body and feathers everywhere and its head was floating. Could a cat have caused a bird to get ripped apart and thrown in an above ground pool? Its very upsetting to think it could have been a person that did this.
I’ve seen a blue jay do this as well.
I have so many birds , grackles hundreds of sparrows, doves, Bluejays, cardinals , redwings, bunnies , turkeys. But I have a sharp shinned hawk and this little bugger is so stealth he literally shoots in and out the brush here. He is deadly. I have seen him in my yard in the winter in top of a dove squeezing hit and picking its feathers. The head was still intact. I recently saw a sparrow with no head and my first thought was this hawk because i saw him here few weeks ago. This hawk looked young. I have seen a fischer cat in my area . This is the first headless animal. I feel i need to take a break from feeding my animals as something is obviously preying out there as There is lots of activity.
I have so many birds , grackles hundreds of sparrows, doves, Bluejays, cardinals , redwings, bunnies , turkeys. But I have a sharp shinned hawk and this little bugger is so stealth he literally shoots in and out the brush here. He is deadly. I have seen him in my yard in the winter in top of a dove squeezing hit and picking its feathers. The head was still intact. I recently saw a sparrow with no head and my first thought was this hawk because i saw him here few weeks ago. This hawk looked young. I have seen a fischer cat in my area . This is the first headless animal. I feel i need to take a break from feeding my animals as something is obviously preying out there as There is lots of activity.
Well it happen once that a tiny sparrow came inside my room probably finding for food (kitchen is just below my room) or hay to build nest. it wandered for sometime inside my room , while it was doing this, it also gained altitude and got stuck and behaded from the rotating ceiling fan. it`s head and rest of the body were almost perfectly cut by the rotating fan and it fell apart due to the moment of inertia. After gaining courage , I first moved its body to see how it got cut and didn’t flapped itself after death(I have actually seen this in poultry farm from where I purcase chicken meat) , after seeing the whole body, I did the same for its head and saw that the ceiling fan decapitated it perfectly . Now the only thing left was to bury it ,which I did after gathering its whole body. This entire event occurred very fast .
I do not suspect any cats or feral cats, it just doesn’t seem right. A cat, normally wouldn’t bite it’s victim’s head off, she or he would eat the prey whole. My only suspects are raptors.
Reasons:
A raptor would just take off the head and kill, and they have their next meal.
It wouldn’t have left ANY evidence, no, not feathers either, if that’s what you’re thinking.
Most raptors DO rip off heads of other small birds, including robins. There are many reasons that I have found in this site too, that ANY large bird could have done this. But, again, my only suspect is the Raptor.
Check out this awesome cat fight video!
Do eat chicken?? Well so do cats! It’s called “nature’
I noticed a large, injured pigeon on the ground in our garden this morning. It seemed to have injured its back because it could flap its wings but not stand or hold its head up straight for long.
Within a few minutes a group of four crows landed around it, and three observed while a fourth crow pecked at the neck of the pigeon, plucking feathers and stabbing at the pigeon with its beak.
I’m not at all squeamish, but was slightly shocked when after no more than 1 or 2 minutes, the crow took off and flew away with the pigeon’s head in its beak.
If I had found a decapitated bird surrounded by plucked feathers I would have suspected cats or foxes, but never again!
A hawk or other bird of prey.
Just this morning I went to check on the baby birds that are nested by our front porch in a bush 4 -4.5 feet high. One was out and looked like he / she was sleeping and I was afraid it would fall. So, when I go to pick it up I noticed it was dead. There’s three so I check them, they have no head just the body. We have no cats. Only thing I can think of is a squirrel. But think about it we’re in & out that door alot. Yesterday they were fine, so it had to have taken place last night. If I could post a picture here, You would see that it had to be something small due to untouched surroundings.