Owl Pellets

We were given some owl pellets from a long eared owl to investigate a little while ago and have just got round to dissecting them this week.

Owls eat a variety of small mammals - they swallow them whole - then 6-7 hours later they regurgitate the indigestible parts in the form of a pellet which they drop on the ground: so dissecting these pellets can give interesting information about their diet and about the kind of animals that are found in the owls habitat.

 Luke thought they were quite smelly so wore suitable nose wear!

 

 Here's an intact pellet,  they are about the size of the end of your thumb - you can just see a bone sticking out of it.

It took quite a while to take the pellet apart - all the elements are tightly packed together. We all worked on our own pellets.

Here is the end result from two of them:

There was loads of fur and each had at least one skull and jaw bone and a number of longer limb bones.

We got the microscope out to have a look at the bones in more detail.

We were given a key to help us identify the bones. The placement of the teeth is the first clue to see if the jaw belongs to a rodent or an insectivore.

Our skull had a gap between the incisors and cheek teeth so we followed the key to no 9 and had to look under the microscope to see the zig-zag chewing surfaces which identified our bone as belonging to voles.

Here are the boys journal pages

 

 

 

Funnily enough Amy's favourite book this week has been Owl Babies so its been owls all round!

More mammal recording

This week we have been out with a man from our local record centre to do some more mammal trapping. With the clock change we set out at about 3.30 to set up the traps. We had 20 of the longworth traps to put out.

We had a production line going - filling with bedding, then seed, apple and castors

Time to log the locations to make finding them the next day easier!

Steve showed Ben how to log GPS coordinates

We had to make sure we located them in some undergrowth, with the tunnel part flat and the main bit at a slight angle to prevent them from becoming waterlogged if it rained. Then camouflage them with some leaves.

The dark seemed to come on us quickly and the last lot were tricky to place but we got all 20 down in various habitats - in bracken, brambles, grassland and down near the stream.

It was an early start the next morning (Ben was not pleased to be out of bed at this time) - 7.30 we were on our way to the woods - its important not to leave the animals in the traps for too long.

Well out of the 20 traps we had 6 tripped with 5 wood mice and a shrew! 

Wood mouse looking for a way out

Wood mouse disturbed from its bedding

You can see the pointy nose on the shrew

Spot the disappearing tail near the middle of the photo!

Our friend from the local record centre was pleased to catch a shrew and showed us the special licence he had to allow him to trap these! Apparently shrews are unpleasant to eat so don't have many predators except owls, but we had heard some owls the previous evening. The shrews distinguishing features are its long narrow nose, it has silky brown fur with a grey underside.

We were also shown how to record these animals on the national database RODIS (Record Online data input system)

Steve has also given us some owl pellets from a long eared owl to dissect and identify the animals eaten by it - sounds fun!

Crochet presents

Been enjoying doing some small crochet projects for presents and they have been well received.
Here is a bookmark I made for a friends birthday.

Some more of these on the way - I have quite a few December birthdays!

My daughter was invited to a Frozen party last weekend. She hasn't seen the film yet but I found
this pattern on pinterest and it was a really quick project for the birthday girl.

 think I will have to crochet another one up for my daughter too!

Here is a preview of my next project for my son - you might need your sunglasses. He likes these neon colours. Lots of ends to sew in yet - all will be revealed soon!

October garden

Harvested our pink fir apple potatoes

Seed heads on Inula

Acer starting to turn red



Hawthorn

Berries ripening

Hypericum

Cones forming

 

Amazing colour on Euonymus Alatus

Chillies brought inside to harvest

Acer

Lots of leaves to rake up!

Octobers craft

Just a little crochet project for a good friend this month who loves hedgehogs

My children think he's really cute so there may be some more of these being made!
Here's a link to the pattern

Autumn art

Amys first sewing project

Autumn leaves

 

Feathery bird

God made me

Birthday kit

Last bits of colour from garden