Owl Pellet Lesson

You could have heard a pin drop as the kids pulled apart these owl pellets to see what the owl had been eating.  They compared the bones to the bone drawings on the chart to see what each bone was.  It was tricky at first, but soon they got quite good at matching the bone to the picture.  They really loved this lesson!

An owl is unable to digest all of its prey, so the fur, feathers and bones are coughed up.  Looking through the pellet tells you what the owl had eaten.  One girls said, "Hmmm...this is creepy and cool at the same time!"  The young students were surprised at how small mice, moles, shrews and voles were.  We did not see any bird bones this time.  Of course they would not think of throwing the bones away, so I let them glue them to a piece of paper, so they could bring them home to show their family.

These pellets had been heated and sanitized, so no worries.  Also we washed afterwards too.