You never know what you can find in an Owl pellet. A small shrew to even a large bird! Since owl don't have teeth they swallow their prey hole. The prey is broken apart by chemicals in thier two stomachs. Then the stomachs separates the bone and fur from the other parts of the prey. I bet your wondering ,what happens to the fur and bones? Well it gets packed together and instead of going down, the owl pellet goes up right through the mouth. Which forms what we call an Owl Pellet!! When we started doing the Owl pellet Lab in class I really didn't like it. However, by the end I was really into it.( Even if it is a bit gross.) It was really hands on and enjoyable. We got to classify the bones in the owl pellet and find out what excactly was in our Owl pellet. My group had a rodent. Three in fact!! There was a lot of bones. I have learned lot's of information about owl pellet and now I actually know what an Owl pellet is!!
I found some intresting things about owl pellets in these sites!
http://www.cairngormwildlife.co.uk/bogwig/surveys/owl_pellet_survey.htm
I never knew they actually surveyed owl pellets in an area!THey use it to find how many of each species live in area.
http://www.nilesbio.com/cat452.html
This is an in depth article that talks about Owl pellets and what you might find in one. Like a bird band!
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