What is killing the birds in Woodlands?

Welcome to a special four-part episode of Law and Order: Special Birds Unit. What you are about to read is not fiction. Any resemblance to people or birds is not coincidental.

THE CRIME

For two years, bird heads, entrails and feathers have been turning up at the void deck of Block 549 Woodlands Drive 44.

The grisly remains have also appeared in residents' homes. A resident, Madam Kumudha, 39, said she often walks past bird heads and feathers lying on the pavement.

THE SUSPECTS

The housewife, who moved into the block last October, first started seeing the bird parts early this year and thought they were the work of pranksters.

Mr Toh, a retiree and a longtime resident of the block, initially thought that the body parts were left by a stray cat.

THE PERP

Mrs Maryann Wong, a housewife with three children, who lives on the 12th storey, phoned the town council when she found stray feathers and sections of bird wings in her flat.

Council employees investigated and discovered a bird of prey perched on the roof of her block just above Mrs Wong's house.

The bird of prey was about half an arm's length in size, and was dark brown.

The predator hunted down smaller birds like crows and mynahs, savouring them on window ledges. The prey's remains are blown onto the void deck and into open windows.

"We can hear the little birds crying for help and see the feathers flying," Mrs Wong told The New Paper. She recently discovered feathers and part of a wing in her master bedroom. Mr Subaraj Rajathurai, a wildlife consultant and member of the Nature Society's Bird Group, suspects that it is a peregrine falcon.

Peregrine falcons are migratory birds, who may come here from the far north, seeking shelter from the winter elsewhere.

They are often found in urban areas.

A spokesman from the Animal Concerns Research and Education Society (Acres) cautioned residents to be wary of the bird of prey's sharp claws, and advised residents not to touch animal entrails with their bare hands.