Feathers tell grisly tale of predator and prey

I SPOTTED it from quite some distance away and walked over to have a look.

There was a patch of pale coloured feathers over a metre in diameter on the grass beside the hedge. Like a forensic scientist at a crime scene, I used the clues to piece together what had happened.

They were all small feathers and had originally belonged to a wood pigeon. There were a lot of them, some grey ones from the back of the bird but most of them were white or white with a faint tinge of pink. These were breast feathers.