Outdoor Hour: Owls

Our subject for nature study this week was owls.  We did so much for this study that it turned into The Outdoor Week lol!  I ordered two owl pellet kits from Homeschool Science Supply and was very pleased with how quickly they arrived.  I thought the boys would be more excited about the whole dissection process, but they were less than pleased (and slightly grossed out) with the concept.  Dh just thought my buying owl puke off the internet was hilarious and wanted to know if I thought he could sell anything he found in the cat’s litter boxes.  Well, if people were buying tar balls from our beach after the oil spill then there could possibly be a market for litter leavings.  ;)  Moving on…

Ds2 helped out his littlest brother.

Here they are measuring the pellet.

See the pure joy on their faces?

It takes a while to pick apart the pellet, but eventually they found bones.  The kit included a bone sorting chart and the boys were excited to find what they think was part of a skull or jawbone in one of the pellets.

Here are some of the other bones they uncovered.

We read some from The Handbook of Nature Study and Usborne Book of Nature about owls and listened to some calls on the internet.  We were surprised that not every owl call is a “hoo”…some even sounded like dogs barking.  We read Sam and the Firefly which both the boys thought was quite fun.

 

The best part of this study was a visit to a local wildlife sanctuary. 

This lovely place is nestled on the outskirts of downtown Pensacola and provides care for injured local wildlife.  Their motto is “Receive Rehabilitate Release.”

You have to look closely as it was hard to get a good shot of the caged guys.  We loved getting a real look at the owls we had been studying all week.

Their faces were so expressive!  We saw owls of all varieties including Great Horned and Barn.

The sanctuary was very educational with plaques and posters everywhere giving details of all the wildlife.  Ha ha, you can see my reflection in this pic.

There was even a place to compare wing spans.  We had a great time with our nature study this week and definitely are more aware of the owls in our area.