Barn Owl, id on catch

[Tokka]

Hello all

Taken a few photo's of this barn owl, it keeps taking food back for it's young, mostly rat's or mice, water voles. in this picture it's got something i just cannot make out what it is?
any ideas.

Thanks

[The Woodman]

Common shrew.

[~T~]

I would say a vole. The head looks too blunt for a shrew.

[RKB]

Originally Posted by ~T~

I would say a vole. The head looks too blunt for a shrew.

Agree. The body is also a bit long for a shrew. I can't make out much else (tail or leg), so it's either field vole or bank vole. I think we can rule out shrews and mice.

[The Woodman]

I was going by the length of tail and the foot.

[Finndog]

Lunch?

[Dogghound]

The tail length is suggestive of field vole, which in most British populations is one of the more dominant prey types.

[The Woodman]

I've had another since -T- mentioned the head. It's strange but where I could see a tail and a leg I now see a pair of hind legs, the head is clearly vole and I would agree field vole.

The more I study the zoomed image the prey changes, hard to describe, but something I have always found difficult from photographs. Apologies.

[Dogghound]

Originally Posted by The Woodman

I've had another since -T- mentioned the head. It's strange but where I could see a tail and a leg I now see a pair of hind legs, the head is clearly vole and I would agree field vole.

The more I study the zoomed image the prey changes, hard to describe, but something I have always found difficult from photographs. Apologies.

I would'nt worry woodman, I do it all the time. Photographs can make things appear very different from how they would look naturally. I often find this with bird photo's where plumage characteristics can appear merged or are a different colour on a photograph.

[RKB]

Originally Posted by The Woodman

I've had another since -T- mentioned the head. It's strange but where I could see a tail and a leg I now see a pair of hind legs, the head is clearly vole and I would agree field vole.

The more I study the zoomed image the prey changes, hard to describe, but something I have always found difficult from photographs. Apologies.

That's what was getting me - is it a pair of legs or a tail and a leg. Tbh I don't think we can tell. We can narrow it down to vole spp., and they're both very common so it's not going to matter much. Identifying it as a vole at all isn't bad from that photo!