Owl Pellet Survey

BoG-WiG is keeping a watching brief on the small mammals that live in the area by making regular collections of owl pellets and dissecting them to see what creatures the owls are finding to eat. This study will be supplemented by occasional trapping sessions for live shrews, mice and voles. These animals will be identified, sexed and weighed before being released exactly where they were caught.

Encouragingly, the very first batch that we dissected produced the skull of a water shrew - the first ever confirmed record of this animal in this area.

 

Field vole skull found in an owl pellet near Boat of Garten

Field vole caught for research in a Longworth trap

Here are the findings from our sessions so far
Session	Field Vole	Bank Vole	Common Shrew	Pygmy Shrew	Water Shrew
1	5	0	2	1	0
2	52	1	14	0	1
3	21	0	7	2	0