Why study pellets

The pellet contents are valuable, because, with a bit of detective work, we can get a great deal of information about the bird that produced it. The solid remains contained in owl pellets are hardly affected by digestion. They can be easily be extracted and identified, sometimes very precisely. The species of small mammals are easy to identify by their skulls and jawbones, and sometimes from other bones.

• We can identify precisely what the bird has been feeding on. This is difficult enough with any bird, especially with a night hunter like an owl.
  
• We can get clues to the owls hunting habits from the prey it has taken.
  
• We can estimate the numbers of different kinds of prey it takes.
  
• If we find out more about the the prey animals, we learn a great deal about food chains and the exact part the owl plays in them.
  
• We can get a great deal of information about the different small mammals and where they are found. This kind of information would otherwise be very difficult to discover.