Owl Pellets By Rachel Lee Period 6 Code

Owl Pellets By Rachel Lee Period 6 Code 9

Introduction

My Comparative Question and Hypothesis My hypothesis: If the diet of a Barn, Saw-whet, and Screech owl were to be researched, then the Barn owl will eat the most variety of prey animals because it is the largest among the three owls. My Comparative Question: Which owl species eats the most variety of prey animals, the Barn, Saw-whet, or Screech owl?

Procedure / Methods First we received an owl pellet. Then we recorded the length, width, height and mass of our pellet. We all started breaking the pellet into small pieces and started to dissect. Later, I sorted my bones to the ones that look alike and created the skeleton of my prey animal. After this, we collected our data and created a comparative question with our confirmed answer. Finally, from all that information, we created a Power. Point that I am showing you right now.

My Prey Skeleton This is my prey skeleton that is (was) a Pocket Gopher.

A Barn Owl’s Prey (few of many) A Mous e A Shrew A Poc ket G opher A Vole

My Data Table 1: Summary of Individual Owl Pellet Contents Prey animal found Number of each Bird 1 Pocket Gopher 2 Non-prey items found (if any) None Table 2: Types of Prey Animals found in Owl Pellets Period 6 Results: Animal Vole Pocket Gopher Mouse Shrew Rat Bird Mole Total # found 49 10 2 1 0 63 Percent 78% 16% 3% 2% 0% 100%

My Data (Cont’d) Table 3: Number of Prey Animals per Pellet Period 6 Results: Table 4: Types of Prey Animals found in Owl Pellets Entire Grade Results: Animal Vole Pocket Gopher Mouse Shrew Rat Bird Molde Total # found 260 27 37 4 0 331 Percent 79% 8% 11% 1% 0% 100%

My Data(Cont’d) Table 5: Number of Prey Animals per Pellet - Entire Grade Results: Table 6: Entire Class Statistics Average number of prey animals per pellet (mean) Type of prey animal contained by most pellets (mode for Table 4) Number of prey animals contained by most pellets (mode for Table 5) Lowest to highest number of prey animals in one pellet (range) 3 Vole 3 0 -8

Graphs

My Comparative Question Data (Data from http: //www. allaboutbirds. org) Type of Owl Variety of Prey Animals Barn Owls (Tyto Alba) 10 Saw-whet (Aegolius acadicus) 34 Screech (Megascops asio) 23

Barn Owl Food Web

Discussion

Conclusion

Thank You for Watching