Look away now

if you're squeamish.

Took the dog for a walk and  when we got to the second stile I found this curious item hanging over the top rail. A sort of small flayed  creature. A mole in fact because although its head was missing the characteristic spade-like front feet could be plainly seen, also a patch of dark grey fur and most of the limbs. Its entrails had gone. I reckon it had been caught by a bird of prey, swallowed whole and regurgitated. Normally only the indigestible parts: bones, teeth, fur, are rejected and emerge in pellet form.  I have no idea why so much of this meal proved indigestible.

I googled 'regurgitated mole' (not many hits*) and learnt  something new to me. Birds have two digestive organs: the proventriculus or fore-stomach produces enzymes that start the digestive process before the food moves on to the ventriculus or gizzard which grinds it up. Anything indigestible gets no further than the proventriculus and comes back up as the pellets we find anywhere that raptors perch. The  one responsible for this leftover must have been having a bad day or maybe needed to lighten its load in a hurry.

*There was an item about a snake that was seen to regurgitate a mole, pictured here (it's an American shrew mole with a longer tail)