Tiny Tuesday : : Mineral*

*I am fascinated by anatomy in any form, so I love the item in today's blip. Dana thinks it is gross, so for those with delicate sensibilities I have edited the thumbnail to eliminate the gross bits and you can stop reading now....


We were walking down by the creek the other day and I found this object quite well camouflaged on an old weathered log. I recognized it immediately as an owl pellet, even though I'm not sure I have ever seen one before. Like most birds, owls can't chew their food, so they swallow it whole. Google continues the definition: Indigestible material left in the owl's gizzard such as teeth, skulls, claws, feathers and fur are to dangerous to go through the owl's digestive tract. To safely excrete this material, the ow's gizzard compacts it into a tight pellet that the owl regurgitates.


It does strike me that it might have been easier to give the poor birds some teeth, but who am I to question the Grand Design? I'm quite sure that the indigestible bits in this pellet are from a mouse, since the fur and the teeth are quite recognizable, so a tiny vase purchased years ago in Bali seemed an appropriate pedestal, and surely the bones are mineral. I also suspect that the coating of fine ash on the vase, undusted since the fire, is probably mineral as well....heaven knows it's been studied enough by numerous agencies to determine toxicity. Well, not this very ash, but samples of it from all over the city.