Weekly Wrap Up - Owl Pellets & Bird Snobs!

This week in our co-op, we dissected Owl Pellets.  For those that do not know, owls cannot digest the bones and hair from the critters they eat.  So, as delicately as I can put this, the remainder comes back up the same way it went down.  

Dissecting Owl Pellets

And THAT is called an Owl Pellet.

Close up of dissecting Owl Pellets

Armed with gloves and tweezers, our elementary aged kiddos pulled apart their pellet carefully separating the 'rodent' hair from the bones.  

Bones from the Owl Pellet

Rodent Skull from an Owl Pellet

Once the bones are cleaned off, we could then compare each set of bones to the poster and figure out which critter the owl had eaten.

Which critter did your owl eat?

We discovered that the majority of bones were from rodents and a few shrews.
The girls were ready to jump in and do this activity and the boys were a bit more stand-off-ish.  On another  funny note, one of the moms who loved Biology in high school was thrilled to sit down and do her own pellet.  Her remark of "This is the most fun I've had all day!" had the rest of us moms ROLLING!
On the Apologia Flying Creatures experiment front -- we finally got those homemade bird feeders up in the trees.  One in the front yard and the other in the back.

Homemade Bird Feeders from Apologia

We set ready with bird identification guides in hand waiting to see the plethora of birds that we know are in the area come swooping down and partake of the buffet .  Unfortunately, we were disappointed.  There were PLENTY of birds, but, not one of them want to land on the feeder and eat.  Drats!
Next week we will try the bird baths and see we can get any visitors.
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