More information on how to find your own oiwl pellets because some of you have asked and it's so much more fun to find your own. We saw them for sale on Amazon, not half so much fun as knowing your owl lives just down the rd and has been hunting and catching animals whilst you've been doing your maths work....
Daddy Sparrow's top tips for pellet hunting......
Barn Owls like to hunt in open spaces and roost in barns/sheds. They may perch and eat their meals on branches nearby, but most of the pellets will be near the roost as a pellet can take up to 16rs to leave the gizzard. We found this abandoned shed in an overgrown field near our local allotments. The first pellet we found was on the grass just outside.
Barn owl pellets are black (ish depending on age) and you can almost always see bits of bones sticking out. They don't smell and are not easily confused with dog poop.
We found 2 more in the shed. Look for bird poop on 'look out' branches/roost rafters, it gives you a clue as to where the owl likes to sit, the scour the area around that.
In the middle of the field was a large pile of weed covered rubble, that his expert eye spyed as a potential perch. We looked and found a Kestrel's dinner table....complete with kestrel pellet (small, grey and tufty looking). Birds of pray do leave pellets but they are smaller and not so good for dissecting as they have powerful beaks and talons that pluck and rip the pray apart, before and during eating. Owls on the other hand swallow their's whole.
Oh and we (the dog...) found a whole dead stoat, just look at his teeth! The sparrows asked if he would have turned white, stoats in colder climates do...maybe if we had more weather like the last few weeks!
And this is just because he's cute...these glasses belonged to Colin when he was 11, he must have had a tiny head!
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