Kestrel regurgitating a pellet

[snake]

I came across this young fella this morning sitting at the side of a farm track.
As I watched him he started to gag and regurgitate a pellet.













Nice to watch.

[2dogs2000]

Beautiful photos and an interesting sequence.

[faz]

hi snake nice shots what she is doing is casting a pellet (hope im not teaching you to suck eggs here ) Which will contain the indigestible parts of her dinner like fur or feather bones parts of beetles etc?

[RobinP]

For some reason I thought only Owls did that but obviously any bird that swallows whole prey must get rid of the 'bits' somehow, do Herons and GBBG's do the same?

Great sequence of pics, I particularly like no.s 3 &4, superb work again Snake.

Robin

[faz]

Most birds that eat indigestible foods produce pelletA pellet, in ornithology, is the mass of undigested parts of a bird's food that some bird species occasionally regurgitate. The contents of a bird's pellet depend on its diet, but can include the exoskeletons of insects, indigestable plant matter, bones, fur, feathers, bills, claws, and teeth. In falconry, the pellet is called a casting. The passing of pellets allows a bird to remove indigestable material from its proventriculus, or glandular stomach. In birds of prey, the regurgitation of pellets serves the bird's health in another way, by "scouring" parts of the digestive tract, including the gullet. Pellets are formed within six to ten hours of a meal in the bird's gizzard (muscular stomach)
some gulls and corvids alos pass a pellet

[The Woodman]

I occasionally find Heron pellets at an upland reservoir site in South Lakes comprising the remains of White clawed Crayfish.

Saw a Dipper last year on Swindale Beck coughing up a pellet containing very small stones - the remains of caddis it had eaten. I've never seen one do that before but the evidence is on many of the river stones.

A Crow pellet full of red briony berries is a colourful pellet. Jackdaw pellets containing sheep wool and red rubber tail rings yesterday presumably scavenged from shed lambs tails. These can be seen in Crow and Raven pellets too.

Gull pellets on Barrow Docks can be found containing fine fish bones.

[Foz]

Kingfishers also cast pellets.
Its amazing the distance they go as they tend to shake thier head as the pellet emerges

[actionfinch]

brilliant pics....

got to ask , did you not pick it up and have a little disection with it .. i have found several pellets at work... and picked them up to look at the later, much to my work collegues giving me funny looks..

I love chris packham and his poo sections...

[RobinP]

A Buzzard pellet would make for an interesting disection, given the variety of things they eat

[actionfinch]

true ... if any one has one i would love to have a go...lol