**Nature Nugget**
Owls are birds of prey, which means that they hunt other animals for food. Owls are generally active at night, hunting for small rodents, birds, and bugs that are a part of its nightly diet. They swallow their food whole, or in large chunks, depending upon the size of the prey. The soluble pieces of their food pass through their two-part stomach and are broken down to make way through the rest of the digestive tract, to be absorbed or excreted as waste. The insoluble or indigestible bits (fur, feathers, claws, bone, teeth, etc) are compressed in the gizzard for several hours, and then are regurgitated as a pellet. This process of regurgitation is called casting. Once the pellet is cast, the digestive process is finished and the owl is able to feed again.
Although roughly cylindrical and usually of a grey brown color, there is some variability in the size and composition of owl pellets, depending on the owl and the kind of prey they are produced from. Pellets are usually one and a half to three inches in length. Their contents can include bones, fur, feathers, bills, claws, teeth, exoskeletons of insects, and even indigestible plant matter, and tend to be odorless.
Owls aren't the only birds that cast pellets; many meat-eating birds, which also consume food that has indigestible matter, cast pellets as part of their digestive process. Birds who cast pellets include hawks, falcons, eagles, herons, cormorants, grebes, kingfishers, swallows, and many shore birds. Owl pellets tend to be larger than those ejected by these other birds because owls generally eat their prey whole, and their digestive acids aren’t as potent. Therefore owl pellets contain more complete bones and other animal remains.
Although owl pellets can be an exciting find, and are interesting to pull apart to examine the remnants of the bird’s diet, it is important to take precautions before handling one. Owl pellet dissection should only be undertaken with sterilized pellets due to the risk of contracting bacteria or viruses.