Owl Pellet Study at Kings Elementary School

On Wednesday, April 7, I visited the Kings Elementary School in Warwick to work with 3rd graders studying owls. Part of our study was to dissect owl pellets to see what their favorite food is. Here is what we found:

Mrs. Flynn’s class – 8 pellets dissected, with 20 mice, 0 shrews, 0 moles, 1 bird
Mrs. Nachtigal’s class – 10 pellets dissected, with 26 mice, 0 shrews, 0 moles, 0 birds
Mr. Dinoto’s and Mrs. Kipp’s classes – 23 pellets dissected, with 63 mice, 0 shrews, 0 moles, 2 birds

In our discussion before dissecting the owl pellets I had presented the idea that the most favored food for owls were mice and that shrews were a secondary food and moles and birds were much less often eaten. It was very interesting to find with the 41 pellets that were dissected that there was no evidence that any shrews had been eaten and that, in fact, 3 birds were part of the owls’ prey.

Compare these findings with owl pellets dissections that I have reported here on my blog - most recently Lynnwood and Ostrander Elementary Schools, Jefferson Elementary in February 2010 and Nazareth Intermediate School in January 2010 (there are other reports - look for them in the archived blogs). The average number of animals eaten per owl pellets is pretty much consistent with the findings of other classes. If this data is combined with the data from other classes it does show the moles and birds are much less eaten than mice and shrews.