I have witnessed the same behavior and found many headless sparrows in the yard after a grackle attack. I have read that they feed the brains of other birds to their young (Yuk) and leave the rest of the body behind. It is supposed to contain the most protein. I started putting out suet in the spring & it did cut down on the carnage in the back yard. If you have ever heard a baby grackle screaming at their mother to be fed, you can almost understand her desperation. ______________________________________________________________________ Ohio-birds mailing list, a service of the Ohio Ornithological Society. Our thanks to Miami University for hosting this mailing list. Additional discussions can be found in our forums, at www.ohiobirds.org/forum/. You can join or leave the list, or change your options, at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/scripts/wa.exe?LIST=OHIO-BIRDS Send questions or comments about the list to: [log in to unmask]