The children in Class 1 were fortunate to have the opportunity to dissect some owl pellets that they were given to the class by Miss Pennock. “Eurgh bird poo”, was many of the children’s first response when they saw the owl pellets soaking in a bowl of water, so we decided to do some research in books on owls before we dissected the pellets.

By reading together the children discovered that it was not bird poo after all but owl pellets – where the owls had eaten their food whole as they did not have teeth to chew, then they had passed the materials they could not digest back out of their mouth.

The children now wanted to find out what the undigested materials were and what owls ate so it was time to explore the owl pellets closer. Some children eagerly volunteered to dissect the pellets with tweezers.

The children found lots of bones, skulls, fur and dirt. After lots of exploring and investigating they were able to conclude that owls ate small creatures such as mice and the owls were unable to digest bones and fur. Most of the children were extremely fascinated by the owl pellets.