Dead Hawk's Last Meal Claws Partway Out

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Tornado Science, Facts and History

A hawk was found dead along a California highway with the claw of a songbird protruding from its chest.

It's not clear, however, if the partially digested meal, one claw somehow managing to get back out from a terribly wrong location, had anything to do with the hawk's death.

"So I did a U-turn, put on my gloves and picked the bird up, and immediately rushed him to the vet where he died in my hands," Di Sieno told LiveScience. "Upon examination, we noticed that there was a small bird claw protruding out of its chest."

A pouch in the hawk's chest area called the crop had ripped open and the songbird, which had been a meal for the hawk, was spilling out.

"We removed a good portion of this bird [the songbird], which was partially digested," Di Sieno said by telephone yesterday. The hawk had apparently just finished downing what might have been a sparrow, she said. "He [the dead hawk] even still had down feathers and meat on his beak."

Birds of prey, like sharp-shinned hawks, typically leave behind the legs and head of their avian meals, Di Sieno said. Perhaps this hawk's failure to do so was the reason Solvang hospital vet George Bertram got such a sight — something he had never seen in his 25 years of practice.

News of the strange hawk death was first reported by Noozhawk, a Web site in Santa Barbara.

However, Di Sieno said she is not sure how the hawk died or what caused its crop to burst open.

Jeanna Bryner
Managing editor, Scientific American

Jeanna Bryner is managing editor of Scientific American. Previously she was editor in chief of Live Science and, prior to that, an editor at Scholastic's Science World magazine. Bryner has an English degree from Salisbury University, a master's degree in biogeochemistry and environmental sciences from the University of Maryland and a graduate science journalism degree from New York University. She has worked as a biologist in Florida, where she monitored wetlands and did field surveys for endangered species, including the gorgeous Florida Scrub Jay. She also received an ocean sciences journalism fellowship from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. She is a firm believer that science is for everyone and that just about everything can be viewed through the lens of science.