Chicago backyard bird--no live sighting

[Karen Furnweger]

I found the head of a Virginia rail on the backyard deck tonight. Perhaps a gift from the peregrines across the alley on the Admiral (Foster and Marine) or the crows? (No feathers nearby, and we do not have feral cats, so guessing an avian predator dined atop a taller building--I regularly find pigeon wings front and back in the summer.) I've seen these rails around Foster Beach and once had one stepping gingerly through my front-yard garden, which is several blocks from where I'd see them at the beach. Would have preferred that kind of sighting.