Second Grade Featured Unit: Owls

Owl Pellets: Owls are unique in the fact that they swallow their prey whole. Their bodies are not equipped to digest everything they eat like bones and fur. So, their bodies separate the meat from the fur and bones and their bodies compact the bones and fur into neat little pellets. Then they cough up these pellets. We took these owl pellets and we took them apart to look for the different bones. We had a bone chart for mice, shrews, voles, and birds. We tried to figure out how many rodents they ate and what they ate by comparing the bones to the chart. Scientists like owl pellets because they see exactly what owls in their regions are eating. We had a Great Horned owl named Luna come visit us in the classroom from the zoo. David Lifton's class is also in the pictures because they came and joined us in dissecting the owl pellets.