Fun with owl pellets, part 1

Today I submitted the Big Grant Proposal that I’ve been working on for a while. To celebrate this, because I am a normal person, I dissected some owl pellets.

Now that's what I call a party.

Now that’s what I call a party.

These particular owl pellets were from Great Horned Owls—these ones, in fact:

owlpellets_owls_scratchingWhen an owl eats something, it doesn’t digest the whole thing. The hard-to-digest parts—bones, fur, exoskeleton—get smooshed into a pellet in the gizzard and then regurgitated. These pellets are a record of what the bird has eaten.

This is my "How is it your business what I've eaten?" look.

This is my “How is it your business what I’ve eaten?” look.

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