| OCR Text |
Show Britain's Little Owl Is Not in Criminal Class About 40 years ago a number of little owls were liberated in this country, writes Oliver G. Pike, F. Z. S., in London Tit-Bits Magazine. Maga-zine. Before this the bird had been rare, but those introduced thrived and spread to almost every English county. The little owl is now so well established estab-lished that it would be difficult to get rid of it, but for years a controversy con-troversy has raged around this bird, some saying it is harmful, others that it does more good than harm. The British Trust for Ornithology I undertook the task of discovering the actual food on which the birds feed. Specimens were obtained from all over the country and their gizzards were examined, as well as cast-up pellets, and nest and larder remains. It is fairly easy to tell the kind of food birds of prey are collecting by examining the pellets of the undigested portions which are cast up through the beak. It was uncertain if the remains of very small chicks would show in the pellets, so several little owls in captivity cap-tivity were given chicks, and it was found that the beaks and down were very conspicuous. Problems to be solved were: Is the little owl a menace to our useful insecting-eating birds; is it a danger to game and poultry; does it kill birds and leave them to decay to attract carrion beetles? If the body of a bird or mammal is left on the ground in summer, the burying beetles soon discover it. All owls are fond of beetles and it has been suggested that these cunning small owls kill and hide animals to attract the beetles, but there is no evidence to support the theory. Among all the material collected col-lected there were only the remains of 75 burying beetles. The inquiry showed that the birds eaten consisted of starlings, house sparrows, blackbirds and song-thrushes; song-thrushes; all the material collected yielded only one pheasant chick, and although there were poultry chicks, all were taken from one farm where dead chickens had been placed on the tops of poultry houses. Of 51 gizzards examined, 44 contained insects, 16 rodents, and only seven had traces of birds. Five species of insects were found in enormous quantities, including the daddy longlegs, earwig and cockchafer. |
