2 TH EE ACU,D ULB O°Ne? B Us Laie Eh eis 
of the mice, It is a fascinating puzzle. We found a sparrow beak or two and 
the remains of a downy woodpecker, 
This large exhibit was made by one of the boys, Jack Downs, one year 
later, when he wanted a project for the Science Fair. He won first place 
in the district and also in the state. For this exhibit he examined sixty 
pellets from Great horned, Long-eared, and Short-eared Owls. He found 
fifty-four skulls, many lower jaw bones, leg bones, teeth and ribs. Using 
vertebrae and incisor teeth, he made an artistic owl’s face. 
As his panel shows, one meadow mouse will destroy from 24 to 36 pounds 
of green food crops a year. A barn owl will eat ten mice at one feeding 
and a few hours later be ready for more. You can see that at one feeding 
the owl will save the farmer from 240 to 360 pounds of vegetation. A 
thousand mice in a field will consume at least twelve tons of food a year. 
This exhibit has been loaned many times, especially to teachers who wish 
to show to their pupils and parents the value of protecting owls. The last 
time was just two months ago. 
With the exhibit I give a few pellets. I saved many of the hundreds I 
picked up, in order that children may find out for themselves just what 
the pellets may contain. However, seeing isn’t always believing. One boy 
told of his father killing five barn owls because they were taking their 
chickens. He could not be convinced otherwise and insisted that when the 
last owl was killed, the chickens quit disappearing. It is too bad that he 
didn’t know how to learn if the owls really were getting the chickens by 
examining the contents of the pellets. Perhaps, if he had, he might have 
found a similar result to that of Dr, Paul Harrington, who examined 145 
barn owl pellets and found 395 vertebrate animals, 121 meadow mice, 12 
lemming mice, 47 shori-tailed shrews, and one rabbit, but no evidence of 
game birds or domestic fowl. 
A Mr. Gerard of Godfrey, Illinois, found a barn owl’s nest 86 feet high 
in a large grain elevator. There was really no nest as the eggs were laid 
‘on the floor in a dark corner. There were seven young in the nest, all dif- 
ferent ages, for owls start incubating with the laying of the first egg. By 
exercising much patience, Mr, Gerard was able to get some excellent 
pictures of the parents bringing food to the young. He found each parent 
brought a mouse or rat about every 15 minutes; both parents working 
together brought about eight mice per hour. The babies were always fat 
and probably got at least ten mice per night. He calculated that 3,990 mice 
would be needed to feed the baby owls for the 57 days they were in the nest. 
One can easily see why the farmer should be happy to have barn owls 
nesting in his barn. Instead, many will shoot them at sight, not realizing 
they are doing themselves more harm than good, The value of such a 
project as this one cannot be over-estimated. Besides teachers, the scout 
leaders and Junior Audubon leaders can arouse much interest in owls and 
their preservation. From pellets one could make a survey of small mammals 
of the community. Another use would be to check on the presence of rare 
animals in the neighborhood. An owl will find them quicker than you will. 
One could make a study of owl pellets for several years and keep a record 
of the numbers of meadow mice, for example, in relation to other forms. 
