Today I noticed a dead rat under the oak tree, not a very large one. The head had been broken into. It was cracked open and the contents of the head were gone, the fur was missing from the top and back of the head and that was the only injury. What would do this and not eat the animal? We do have starlings but would they do this to a rat? I thought perhaps a hawk had dropped it. There was a sharp shinned hawk that flew into the oak tree today and got chased away by the crows. This was long after finding the rat though. I'm not sure if it happened last night or this morning. If at night, I thought it might another creature but it seems more like a beak injury.