Show britaina Brit ains little owl Is not in criminal class i about 40 years ago a number of little owls were liberated in this tou writes oliver G pike F f S in london tit bits magazine before this the bird had been tare kare but those introduced thrived and spread to almost every english county the little owl is now so well established that it would be difficult to I 1 get rid of it but for years a controversy tro versy has raged around this bird some saying it is harmful others that it does more good than harm the british trust for ornithology undertook the task of discovering the actual food on which the birds reed feed specimens were obtained from all over the country and their gizzards giz we were re examined as well as cast up pellets and nest and larder remains it is fairly easy to fo tell the kind of food birds of prey are collecting by examining the 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 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 infecting 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 mamma is left on the ground in summer the burying beetles soon discover it all owls are fond of beetles and it has hai been suggested that tai these iese cunning small owls kill and hide animals to attract the beetles but out there is no evidence to support the theory among all the material collected there were only the remains remains of 75 burying beetles the inquiry showed that the birds eaten consisted of starlings house sparrows blackbirds and 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 giz examined 44 contained insects 16 rodents and only seven had traces of birds five species of insects were found in enormous enormous quantities in including the daddy longlegs earwig and cockchafer |