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Monday, November 2, 2015

Rounded and flattened


Have you seen a White-tailed Kite pellet before?  I hadn't until about a month ago.  This is similar to an owl pellet the kite coughs up a pellet of the prey parts that can't be digested, e.g., fur and bones. (Kites primarily feed on small mammals.)  This is one example, although some pellets are smaller than this.  I read that the dimensions of the pellets can vary depending on the size of the prey that the kites have eaten recently. 

Most of the pellets I've seen are rounded like this one.  And although it's probably difficult to tell from the picture, the pellets are somewhat flattened.

So there's your lesson for the day.  Now you can tell everyone that you know what a kite pellet looks like.

:)
 

3 comments:

Hollis said...

Hi Jackie! Have you found any identifiable rodent bones in these kite pellets?

Jackie Sones said...

Hi, Hollis!

Hmmm...ahh...well, the answer to your question might be appearing in a future post? But I'll provide a bit of a hint -- I've learned that hawks tend to digest more than owls. More later! :)

Hollis said...

Ahhh - an intriguing teaser... :-)