Owl pellets

[Queen bee]

I went for a walk in the woods at the bottom of our fields this evening (it's got a narrow strip of pine at the top, leading down to deciduos, with oak and hazel, etc. with a stream running through and lots of bog. We're on the edge of dartmoor, so Bog Woodland is here and there) There are several fenceposts along there, on the divide between the conifers and deciduous, and here I found two dark grey owl pellets, one on top of the post and one below. (I found one on a post here a couple of years ago as well, and before have found remains of one on a different post where rain had washed the fur away) I break up from school tomorrow, so I'll have lots of time to dissect them at leisure I'll post my findings here (it's a funny coincidence: I was helping out at my local Wildlife watch group the other day, and the subject was owls. We had two lovely owls in and drew them, and dissected owl pellets.)

[Meta menardi]

Well that has to be the best offer I have had for a long time. Owls must see and eat so much more than we do, I have always rather liked the idea of forensically looking at what they do.

I found a pellet a couple of years ago above Ingleton, black as black with beetle wing cases (elytra). Looking forward to your results.

Always good to send data to your local Ecological data centre, then it is part of the stuff that gets looked at when planning decisions are made.

[Queen bee]

Well, there's not very much that's distinctive in there. A few bits of broken skull, lots of little things like pelvises and vertebrae. It seems to be mostly voles, and the occassional mouse, but i was interested to find there was no evidence of shrews in there.

[Meta menardi]

So do you think you have an ID on the culprit?

I suppose if there is an abundance of prey of one type, why go hunting for something fresh. I hope you don't feel disappointed, every answer is more information.