They don't eat the feet, no point since they'd just have to cough them up - and not like chicken wings, no meat on them.
And yes, they do discard them, though they do tend to have favourite places (certain rooftops) that way they can be certain that the "bits" won't attract a predator to nest. They even drop them over the rivers to make sure the debris is carried away - songbirds do the same thing with swimming pools and the poop packets their chicks produce.
As for the band, couldn't tell you want species it was but it looked bigger than the plover Eye-Spy suggested. And not enough bands on it - plovers tend to have combinations to indicate where, when and at what age they were banded. Actually, I can say for sure it wasn't a plover, the feet/legs were too big, but perhaps not too big for one of the small rail species but I don't know if anyone is banding them as part of a study somewhere - or was banding this one. Only saw it for two frames on the video playback but I'm going to send it along to some of the ornithologists around town since they have asked. So we'll see I guess.
As for where they get them, they are all over the place along the rivers and small wetlands in town, but we know that the Radisson birds visit OHM, so maybe that is where take-out comes from this week.
