Barn Owl Pellets

Description:

What is a Barn Owl Pellet? Barn Owls generally swallow their prey whole but are unable to digest the hair and bone. After each night's hunting the owl regurgitates one or two black pellets typically about the size of a man's thumb and containing the remains of four or five small mammals. In dry well-used roost sites lots of Barn Owl pellets can accumulate and using the Trust's age determination guide it's now possible to work out how recently the owl was present... Many thousands of owl pellets have been analysed so a great deal of information on Barn Owl diet is available. In the UK the most frequently taken prey is the field vole, Microtus agrestis (also known as the short-tailed vole) usually forming between 40% and 80% of the diet. In most diets, the long-tailed field mouse, Apodemus sylvaticus (also known as the wood mouse) or common shrew, Sorex araneus is the second most frequently taken. Although not often important by number, the brown rat, Rattus norvegicus is important when the body weights of the various prey are considered.