The fun to be had at a a Pellet Party!!

For nature study this week we dissected an owl pellet. All you need is :

• One beady eye for finding the owl pellet: look under perches (straight branches near open spaces) in the 'wild'. Luckily we have a daddy sparrow who is an expert at this.
• Some warm water and disinfectant.
• Tweezers and a thin paintbrush
• 2 angle lamps
• Tray for collecting bones
• One enthusiastic student!

Soak the owl pellet in the warm water with disinfectant. After 30mins/1hr (the older you think the pellet is the longer you should leave it in) you can begin to tease the pellet apart. Use the paintbrush to clean off the bones that you find.

Our owl (it may have been any other raptor pellet, although the number of bones we found suggest it was indeed from an owl) had eaten 2 moles and a mouse. We found skulls, jawbones,shoulder blades forelegs, vertebrae, digits....

The above photo is of the mouse skull and jaw. The two mole skulls were more slender and had serrated teeth all the way along the jaws.

We have kept the bones to label and mount.

And in case you are squeamish, pellets aren't poop, they have never passed through the digestive system of the bird, the 'bony bits' are stored for up to a day in the bird's gizzard and then coughed back up ;)

Happy pellet hunting!