Tuesday, March 19, 2013

Long eared Owl pellets

Hi all,i have been searching through 140 LEO pellets recently and found these bits of bird beaks ,I also found 1 dunnock feather  in and amongst all the fur.Can any one put them to family or know a good web site or blogg that may help.??135 Field Vole,1 Mole,1 Pygmy shrew,1 wood Mouse,3 caterpillar skulls, 30 beetle larvae,1 adult beetle,1 skin Moth larvae,1 parasitic fly sp and at least 5 bird sp.??

4 comments:

heavy birder said...

Birds very difficult to id in owl pellets. When me and Martyn did Long-eared Owl pellets 20 years ago we found lots of small conical finch bills, almost all of them were thought to be Brambling (invasion year).

heavy birder said...

top one looks like starling or Thrush, best bet to messure length of upper mandible then get hold of a ringers manual and look up bill lengths.

heavy birder said...

The old Helm book tracks and signs may be of use or it may be an idea to contact Sean Gray or Mike Denton they are both ringers.

David Sutcliffe said...

Well done Andy for all that painstaking work with great results.