winter walks + owl pellets

We've been taking lots of walks during Joe's recovery. It snowed a little, then melted. I'm missing the lovely white forest, but it sure has been easy to wander all over the woods without it. Joe discovered an owl tree, and we've been collecting owl pellets....We're guessing these are most likely from a Barred Owl, the most common one we hear in our woods, "who-cooks-for-you". They like to hang out in pine trees, and every now and then we'll find a favorite tree of theirs with lots of treasures like this underneath it. Owl pellets are basically owl hair balls, the undigestible bones and fur of whatever they ate. Lovely, I know. They are much easier to see on fresh snow, but still pretty visible on bare ground once you know what you're looking for. Usually they look like little blobs of grey fur, but after some rain you sometimes find tiny piles of bones, the grey fur washed away from them. Yes, I pick this stuff up with my bare hands, that's what soap is for. So now I've got a tiny collection of rodent skulls because, well, one never knows when they might need a rodent skull.... or feather.... or teeny acorn... or perfect round river rock... and yes, that is a bird beak in that last photo! It's the owl equivalent of accidentally eating a whole tortilla chip, but twice as bad because it has to come back up. Ouch!Shout out to my fellow treasure collectors.xo,s