Sidewalk Kill

It gets graphic at the end….

I was just minding my own business walking down the grandly named Brooklyn Bridge Boulevard towards Atlantic Avenue, across from the Brooklyn Pokey/Detention Complex. I kept one eye on the sky, because I am half an optimist, and one eye on the sidewalk, because I am the other half a pessimist — and I don’t want to step in it, I’m sure you know what I mean. When I notice this in the shade of a street lamp:It looks awfully pellet-like. Owls are the most well-known pellet producers, regurgitating compressed packages of undigestible bone, fur, feathers, scales, husks, etc., but other birds do it as well. In fact, in Elbroch & Marks’ Bird Tracks and Signs, they say that most species are capable of it, but that size and weather tend to obscure most of the resulting pellets. Owls are gulpers, with weak stomach acids, so whole skulls and jaw bones can be found in their pellets. But raptors have stronger stomachs, and only tiny bits of bone will be found in them. And, in general, the Prison Peregrines, whose work I believe this is, are bird-eaters, eschewing the bones for the nutritious breast meat.

And just a few feet away from the pellet, another rather suggestive sign (like Thoreau’s “trout in the milk”):It’s a regular killing field out there. Now, what the devil was this bird?

Update: Pigeon seems a possibility, but several off-line commentors have suggested Mourning Dove.