Owl pellets

I was out walking the other day and flushed a Barn Owl which had been perched in an Ash tree.

When I looked around the vegetation below the tree I found this pellet.

I put some water in a shallow dish and soaked the pellet for a couple of hours and then using a pair tweezers I separated the bones from the fur. I then allowed the bones to dry and glued them onto a piece of card.

There were five different mammals within one pellet. The top row are skulls, then jaw bones, scapulars, thigh and leg bones and finally vertebrae.

Here you can see both Shrew and Vole skulls.

There is a really nice site here with a key to identifying skulls.

http://www.skullsite.co.uk/Skullkeys/key.htm