On the hunt for Owl Pellets (A FIAR field trip)

 While I was planning for school in August, I knew I wanted to row through the book Owl Moon sometime in the winter.  Towards the end of November I told Barry that I need to purchase some owl pellets for dissection in January when we would get to this book.  He told me that his friend, and  fellow deputy knew of a spot where there were many bones of rabbits that became prey to the local owls.  He was sure that Clarke would help and take us to find them.  I was so excited, but when we actually got out to the spot, the bones were gone!
However, he remembered a friend that had been out dog hunting in the area and when he came upon one certain tree an owl would always fly away.  Sooo, we were off again, high with hope, in finding some owl pellets.  The tree that Clarke thought was "the tree" didn't have any and we were feeling a little gloomy, but then I heard Barry shout  "Hey, is this what they look like?  I think we may have found some!"  

 Sure enough, around the base of another pine tree he found some grey balls that looked like dead mice, but upon inspection, they were owl pellets...at least I thought them to be, they fit the description.

We searched around for some more and came away with 7 or 8 owl pellets, a few feathers and a very happy hunting crew!

 Posing in front of the "Owl Tree".  We can't thank Clarke enough for a wonderful drizzly, afternoon traipsing through the woods in search for owl pellets....I'm sure he thinks we're crazy homeschooling people.  But, he did get a loaf of my famous cinnamon bread for the deed!

 A few days later, after I did a bit of research on owl pellets, we completed the second half of our experiment.  We soaked the pellets in water and started to clear away the fur, hair and debris.  Using a chart that helps identify the prey by the bones we found that our owl eats lots of field voles, commonly known as field mice, however, voles and mice are different.  By the teeth we were able to tell that these were voles.

We have been doing watching lots of videos, researching sites and reading books on owls.  Here in Virginia, most commonly we have Great Horned Owls, Barred Owls, Screech Owl and Barn Owl.  We've concluded that this owl is definitely not a Barn owl--his home is in the tree, not a human structure such as a silo or barn,--it's most likely a Great Horned owl, because they prefer pine trees to nest in.

Although Cailin's working on primitive plants for science,she's loving this sidetrack into the life of owls.  She plans to do a bit of research on them too.

 This looks quite gross really, but even Delaney, who wasn't excited about sifting through the gunk had a wonderful time.

We identified ribs, scapula, jaw bones (from the teeth pattern we were able to identify the prey as voles), pelvic bones, hind limbs, and forelimbs, vertebrae and lots and lots of skulls.