On Monday, May 24, I visited the Altamont Elementary School. I met with two 4th grade classes to learn about owls. Here are the results of the owl pellet dissection that we did.
Miss Flanagan’s class dissected 11 pellets and found 28 mice, 1 shrew, 0 moles and 0 birds
Mrs. Vogel’s class dissected 11 pellets and found 36 mice, 0 shrews, 1 mole and 0 birds
The average number of animals found per pellet for the two classes was 3. This is a little higher than usual. Check the other owl pellet dissections here on the blog and you’ll find that the average number of animals per pellet is about two and half. This larger than average number is probably the result of dissecting pellets that came from owls that had feasted on a family of mice. These pellets had 5 or 6 skulls that were very small. These small skulls were probably from young mice. The owl would have heard the squeaking sounds made by the young mice in a nest. It would have swooped down on the nest and eaten all the mice there at one time.
By combining these number with the numbers found in other owl pellet dissections you can see if mice are indeed the most favored food, with shrews being a second choice and moles and bird not often eaten.
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