Barn Owls

This is Molly.  She is a barn owl that we have been watching for a few days now via live web cam from San Marcos, CA.  She is in the process of hatching several owlets.  She started with 5 eggs and so far at least 1 has hatched.  We've loved watching her mother these eggs and little baby.  Her mate, McGee, brings dinner each night and it's very interesting to see her eat (gulp) and feed her little one.  You can watch her too if you go here.

We have learned a lot about barn owls recently.  One thing we discovered is that they swallow their prey in large pieces.  Because their stomachs can only digest the soft tissue parts, the undigested fur, bones, etc. are formed into large pellets which the owl spits out (regurgitates).  This usually happens about 18-20 hours after the owl eats.  So, each owl pellet contains a virtually complete skeleton of the animal the owl ate the previous night.

Well...we just so happen to have a friend that was so kind as to give us several owl pellets.  Turns out you can order these things online - who knew?!  Anyway, they come wrapped in aluminum foil kind of like a little baked potato....

                                  

And here's what they look like when you first unwrap them....

Okay, so then we grabbed some toothpicks and started (carefully) digging.  We discovered that the pellets were made mostly of tightly packed fur.  Here's what they looked like as we took them apart...

And here's what we found inside!

YIKES!