Worksheet

Owl Pellets: Clues from a Hunter's Dinner

Read a science article about how owls form pellets and how students study them, then explain what happens and why using details from the text.

Grade 4ELAInteractive · Printable

Aligned toRI.4.3

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1 Common Core standard
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9 questions
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Details

Format: Interactive · Printable
Grade: Grade 4
Subject: ELA
Question types: Fill in the blank, Multiple choice, Matching, Circle the answer, Short answer

About this worksheet

What students practice

Students explain the steps of how an owl forms and coughs up a pellet, using details from the text.
Students explain why scientists study owl pellets and what they learn.
Students describe the steps of a procedure in a technical text.

How to use

Read the article together before or after an owl pellet lab. Have students number the steps in paragraphs 2, 3 and 5 as they reread.

Curriculum

Common Core standard covered

RI.4.3

Explain events, procedures, ideas, or concepts in a historical, scientific, or technical text, including what happened and why, using specific information.

Preview

OwlSheets.com

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Owl Pellets: Clues from a Hunter's Dinner

Explain how an owl makes a pellet and how scientists study it.

Read the article

Owl Pellets: Clues from a Hunter's Dinner

1Owls are hunters. They eat mice, voles, shrews, insects and other small animals. An owl often swallows a small animal whole, or in a few large pieces. But an owl cannot digest everything it swallows. Bones, fur and feathers do not break down inside its body. So what happens to them?

2The answer starts in the owl's stomach. Like other birds, an owl has a stomach with two parts. In the first part, digestive juices break down the soft parts of the meal. The leftovers move to the second part, called the gizzard. The gizzard squeezes the fur, bones and other hard parts together into a tight, oval bundle called a pellet.

3Several hours after the meal, the pellet travels back up, and the owl coughs it out of its mouth. An owl usually cannot eat another meal until the pellet comes out, because the pellet blocks the way to its stomach. Owls often return to the same resting spot, called a perch. As a result, pellets can pile up on the ground below it.

4Scientists use pellets to learn what owls eat. Many owls hunt at night, so their meals are hard to watch. Owl stomach juices are not very strong, which means the small bones in a pellet often stay whole. A scientist can match each skull to a mouse, a vole or a shrew. By counting the skulls, the scientist can tell how many animals the owl ate.

5Many students take apart owl pellets in class. First, the pellets are heated so they are free of germs. Next, a student gently pulls a pellet apart with a toothpick or tweezers. Then the student separates the bones from the fur. Finally, the student sorts the bones by shape and uses a bone chart to tell skulls, jaws, ribs and leg bones apart.

6One small gray pellet can tell a big story about where an owl hunts and what animals live nearby.

How a pellet forms

Use details from the article to answer each question.

Why does an owl make pellets?

A. It saves part of its meal to eat later.
B. It cannot digest bones, fur and feathers.
C. It uses pellets to build a nest on a perch.
D. It swallows small stones to help it chew.

Read paragraph 2 again. Underline the sentence that tells what the gizzard does.

The answer starts in the owl's stomach.Like other birds, an owl has a stomach with two parts.In the first part, digestive juices break down the soft parts of the meal.The leftovers move to the second part, called the gizzard.The gizzard squeezes the fur, bones and other hard parts together into a tight, oval bundle called a pellet.

According to paragraph 3, why does an owl usually need to cough up a pellet before its next meal?

A. The pellet makes the owl too heavy to fly.
B. The owl needs the pellet to catch its prey.
C. The pellet blocks the way to its stomach.
D. The owl must rest on its perch to digest.

Why can pellets pile up on the ground in one place?

A. Owls often return to the same perch.
B. Owls hide their pellets under trees.
C. Owls hunt in the same field each night.
D. Owls cough up many pellets at once.

Read paragraph 2 again. Write the word that names the tight, oval bundle of fur and bones.

The bundle of fur and bones is called a .

Studying pellets

Use paragraphs 4 and 5 to answer these questions.

Why do the small bones in a pellet often stay whole?

A. The fur wraps around them like a blanket.
B. The pellets are heated to remove germs.
C. The owl swallows only the biggest bones.
D. Owl stomach juices are not very strong.

Complete the steps for taking apart an owl pellet. Use each word from the word bank once or not at all.

Word bank: chart · swallowed · fur · heated · gizzard · tweezers

First, the pellets are so they are free of germs.
Next, a student pulls a pellet apart with a toothpick or .
Then the student separates the bones from the .
Finally, the student uses a bone to tell the bones apart.