Yesterday, as one does on a typical Friday evening, the season of pellet dissecting with the Kerkuilwerkgroep and Natuurpunt has begun with a barn owl from 2025 out of the Bourgoyen. Many more pellets than we can handle, but I manage to finish five, with the short-tailed field vole (aardmuis) spanning the crown of 4 finds (example in first picture). There’s also white-toothed shrew (huisspitsmuis), two common pine voles (ondergrondse woelmuis), common shrew (gewone bosspitsmuis) and a long-tailed field mouse (gewone bosmuis).

Skull and lower cheekbones of short-tailed field vole. Short-tailed field vole out of barn owl pellet from Bourgoyen.

All determinations are checked by Johan, Norbert or Rik of the Kerkuilwerkgroep and the data is logged and used to keep track of the diet of barn owls and populations of mouse species across Western Europe. Pellet dissecting season runs from October until March, so this probably isn’t the last dead mouse I’ll post here.

Overview of contents of one pellet. One pellet can contain one or multiple victims, in this case three.