The woodcock moon - unfortunate for some

Dead Woodcock

A Friday afternoon phone call from hubby Bill and a mystery to solve. His boss Graham had espied an unusual dead bird  outside the University’s Sherrington building, close to where they work.  It had a long beak, larger than a pigeon and brown speckled plumage, definitely not one of the garden varieties then.      Bill being the inquisitive obliging type went to investigate and finding it still in situ, duly bagged it and brought it home.

Amazing Camouflage

The bird was in poor condition having had its innards and chest removed by some sort of predator and only one wing was intact.   

Checking the length of beak, colour of legs and it's beautiful plumage markings we identified our bird as a woodcock .

Sherrington building

The Sherrington building has a lot of glass windows and we're surmising the poor thing flew into it overnight, killed itself and became lunch for something - probably a carrion eating bird, surely a fox would have taken the lot.

You’ll be pleased to know he/she was given a dignified burial at Bimson’s nook, asleep beneath the violas .

  http://blx1.bto.org/birdfacts/results/bob5290.htm

By the way this isn’t the first time we’ve found an unfortunate one.  Another Woodcock was found in 2012, amazingly  2 yrs to the day

http://liverpoolrspb.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/an-unfortunate-death.html

Laura