The owl pellet we found recently yielded the remains of what were probably a rat. Andy's Mum (who's good at these things), showed us how to wash the pellet in warm water to loosen it and tease out the boney treasures. (For a more scientific account of pellets, go here).
So what I had (unrealistically) thought were large teeth were actually vertebrae. There were bits of straw in there too, and with a farm near the find site, it was probably a barn owl. Sadly, there has a been a dead owl at this farm for several weeks. (No one seems bothered about moving it, although today we saw that it has been slung in a corner now, and moved off the shelf where it had been resting...) A while back, before it got too grotty, I took some photos of it for reference. I was amazed at how light it was, and the softness its feathers.
What a terrifying monster this must be to its prey, gliding silently through the velvet night, meathook talons ready to stab through soft, warm little bodies. There is nothing gentle about the barn owl - except it's feathers. A superbly designed killing machine and beautiful with it.
The owl from the book I am working on is an old softy though. He probably eats lentil soup and oatcakes. Nothing lethal about his claws...
On a less salubrious note, while we were out for our morning walk, we came across a dead crow...
As Andy nudged it with his foot, the head squirmed. It was like that moment from 'Carrie' , when the hand suddenly appears from the grave. Morbidly fascinated, we glimpsed shiny fat black bodies wriggling about in a head cavity, causing the skin to writhe and squirm. They soon vanished iinto the refuge of the rotting skull, and all was still again. Despite poking it with a stick, turning it over and shaking it, no more insect life appeared. We are the Hopeless Naturalists, and we couldn't decide whether it was a spider or carrion beetles. It was a delicously gruesome moment though!
