Regarding the Snowy Owl pellet thread. Back in December (12/ 16 and
17/11) I found and dissected 11 pellets that I assume were from Snowy
Owls out on Damon Point. The pellets were from under several logs that
either I had seen owls roosting on or seemed like likely roosts. I
didn't get too technical in my analysis. I did a study on Long-eared
Owls back in the 70's while I was at Iowa State University, so I do have
a little background in this sort of thing. Anyway, all of the pellets
contained nothing but bird bones and feathers. I classified the bones
into three size groups, sparrow sized, Sandlerling sized and "bigger".
While I didn't pursue exact ID of the bones, it was easy to surmise what
was going on. In the area around the drift wood where these owls were
living, it was common to see song and fox sparrows and there were a few
horned larks out in the more open areas. These probably made up the
small bird prey. The beaches were also frequented by Sanderlings and
Dunlin which probably made up the larger bird prey. A couple of the
pellets contained larger bones, usually broken, although there were some
elongated neck vertebrae. These pellets also contained some coarse
sand. I surmised that these may have been scavenged dead birds and at
the time there were a lot of dead western grebes washing up in the
area. I also noticed a couple Snowies with red blood stains on their
facial feathers that may have been from scavenging larger prey items. I
know much of this is circumstantial and very limited, but the fact that
all the pellets had bird remains in them and no mammal remains is not.
I makes you wonder what really got the MaKay's bunting, if that was
what those feathers are from.

Gary Fredricks
Washougal, WA