owl puke*...
*thank you, Charlene for setting me straight!!
*thank you, Charlene for setting me straight!!
It is well over 100 degrees here today....definitely a good day to stay inside and pull apart some owl pellets. We are fortunate to have a very healthy Barn Owl population around our house. A good friend has a pair nesting in one of her trees. In her words "come on by and grab some pellets! Our poo is your poo*!" I tell ya, that's a true friend ;)
I looked around online and found this simple bone identification chart, as well as this site, if you'd like to do something similar, but don't have owls living nearby.
Even the teeny-weeny hands got in on the action. Our biggest score of the afternoon, by far....
To clean off bits of fur, and um...whatever else was stuck on there (ahem) we put the bones in a 4:1 water/bleach solution. (Just for a few minutes, or the bones will disintegrate)
There was a brief moment when the kids realized what exactly, an owl pellet is.
"Oh....it's poo*? "
In that moment, I wasn't sure if I was going to lose them. In my mind's eye, I could see them running away from the table shrieking "eeeewwwwwww! "
I should have known better, though. I mean, when you're 5 years old .... what's cooler than poo?
**And now that we know the truth...the whole thing is even cooler!! Puke scored even bigger points than poo ;)
I looked around online and found this simple bone identification chart, as well as this site, if you'd like to do something similar, but don't have owls living nearby.
Even the teeny-weeny hands got in on the action. Our biggest score of the afternoon, by far....
To clean off bits of fur, and um...whatever else was stuck on there (ahem) we put the bones in a 4:1 water/bleach solution. (Just for a few minutes, or the bones will disintegrate)
There was a brief moment when the kids realized what exactly, an owl pellet is.
"Oh....it's poo*? "
In that moment, I wasn't sure if I was going to lose them. In my mind's eye, I could see them running away from the table shrieking "eeeewwwwwww! "
I should have known better, though. I mean, when you're 5 years old .... what's cooler than poo?
**And now that we know the truth...the whole thing is even cooler!! Puke scored even bigger points than poo ;)
What a cool thing to do! Would you care to send a couple pellets North?
I thought owl pellets were puke, not poo.
Posted by: Charlene | June 23, 2009 at 05:13 PM
ACK! You're right...somewhere in the back of my mind bells were ringing that I wasn't remembering it correctly...
I'd LOVE to send you a few (we've got no shortage). Do you think customs would freak out?
Posted by: robyn | June 23, 2009 at 08:54 PM