From Khong Yew

Buffy Fish Owl

Hampstead Wetlands, Singapore

Sep 2025

Check my comment below for how owls are able to swallow food like this while not losing concussion!

      • anon6789
        OP
        5·
        10 months ago

        Pellets are less creepy than I expected. I was also surprised that hawks and eagles also make pellets. I had only ever heard about owls making them.

        I’ve cleaned up many of them at work. Once they dry out a bit they just feel like a ball of dryer lint to me. It’s amazing how much they are able to extract from everything. This is why you can’t go just feed an owl chunks of chicken breast or whatever-they really do extract every last bit of nutrition from the entire prey animal!

        (Just to clarify, the photo is an eel going in, not a pellet going out.)

        • Maeve@kbin.earth
          3·
          10 months ago

          Lol. You’ve become accustomed to my vision! I realized that, thank you for thinking of me. It was the diagram I said was less gnarly.

          I’m not hating on our owls! And that’s pretty cool to know, a lot of old-timer humans will bite the end off chicken bones to suck out marrow. Lots of minerals there!

          • anon6789
            OP
            3·
            10 months ago

            It would be much smaller as a pellet, as everything gets squished to the size of their gizzard.

            Bird digestion is pretty neat, and after dealing with human, cat, dog, misc mammal, and bird waste, the bird stuff is probably the least worst of the bunch.