What would kill a Call (miniature) duck and only leave the head?

[Amberly98]

We live in a urban area of northern CA and had 3 call ducks. My females are small, about a pound. Sometime last night or early this morning something killed one of my girls. My mail was calling for her all morning so I went out to investigate what was upsetting him. There were just a few short body feathers in the yard but nothing that would indicate a struggle. My dog found the ducks partially eaten head with some of the neck attached (but skinned). The face was still intact but one part of the skull had been removed and I could completely seen inside her head (sorry for the graphic details....). No blood or other signs of a struggle other then my other two ducks acting skittish. Our ducks are kept in our fully fenced back yard. Our yard is surrounded by a 6 foot redwood fence and has retaining walls on 2 of the three sides. We do not have racoons, foxes, or bob cats in our area but we do get some skunks, opossums, and rats. I have never seen owls in the trees around our yard, but they could be there. I have seen hawks in the area but never in our neighborhood or my back yard for that matter (although I guess it could be possible). Our chicken coop has bee hit by rats (when we had chicks) and we had what we thought was a opossum get into our coop and kill one of our chickens and then came back the next night and attached anther but was scared off. Whatever attacked our chickens left the body......so I am wondering what may have taken off with my ducks body but left the head/neck behind.

Any thought would be appreciated. Just trying to figure out what I am up against to keep my other ducks safe.

 

[The Moonshiner]

Owl

 

[LadiesAndJane]

Back in the day when we had pheasants and lived in Northern California, a weasel killed a male and only left the head and a bunch of feathers behind.
Sorry you lost your duck.

 

[cmom]

If you have a camera put it up because it will be back and then you should know for sure. Good luck...
https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/post-your-game-cam-pics-here.438535/page-366

 

[Ridgerunner]

We do not have racoons, foxes, or bob cats in our area but we do get some skunks, opossums, and rats.

If you have skunks, opossums, and rats you have raccoons, foxes, and probably bobcats and coyotes. Talk to your local animal control, you may be surprised.

I am wondering what may have taken off with my ducks body but left the head/neck behind.

A bird of prey is a good guess. They usually kill by tearing the head off. Often they eat where they make the kill but if they are big enough they can carry the body away. So a decent sized owl, hawk, or eagle. The one time I had an owl attack it tore the head of but left the body. I may have surprised it and scared it away. Or it may have been a fairly small owl.

My next guess is a bobcat. They can kill that way and typically carry the body off. They hide what they don't eat so they can finish it later. A 6' fence would not slow them down.

A coyote or fox is also possible. A coyote should be able to jump that fence even when carrying a small duck. Google "fox climbing fence", it's amazing how they can sort of run up a fence. These don't usually take the head off and leave it behind but not all of them read the book. They don't all act exactly as they are usually supposed to.

It would help if you could find tracks or poop to narrow it down but that's not all that easy. There are a lot of things that eat chickens and ducks, without a clue it's hard to narrow it down.

 

[kodster]

You'd be surprised at how many predators are in your 'urban' area nowadays. We've encroached on their habitat so much that they are no longer afraid of mankind and will live amongst our homes in urban areas. So, don't dismiss the possibility that there are bobcats, foxes, coyotes, et al, in your area. They are. You just don't see them.

Much as I hate to say it, you need to make sure that your call ducks are confined at night, in a sheltered area, so that predators cannot get to them at night, when they're more active. Obviously, a 6-ft privacy fence is not sufficient to keep them protected.