never seen this before...

[sourland]

Ate the heads completely. When a GHO kills a cottontail it starts eating from the head backwards - eating everything it is able to consume. They will then generally 'hide' the rest of the rabbit so that the crows or vultures don't eat it. In cool weather through winter they will return to the kill the next night and finish their meal. They will not return to a kill once it spoils - unlike redtails who will even eat carrion. If you ever have a chance to dissect the 'barf pellets' of a GHO you will find bones, teeth, skulls and hair of their prey.

 

[janinepeters]

Ate the heads completely. When a GHO kills a cottontail it starts eating from the head backwards - eating everything it is able to consume. They will then generally 'hide' the rest of the rabbit so that the crows or vultures don't eat it. In cool weather through winter they will return to the kill the next night and finish their meal. They will not return to a kill once it spoils - unlike redtails who will even eat carrion. If you ever have a chance to dissect the 'barf pellets' of a GHO you will find bones, teeth, skulls and hair of their prey.

Cool. Thanks for the response. Yeah, I've dissected pellets, but found skulls of only small mammals like voles and mice, never a skull of a cottontail or larger bird. It struck me as unusual that they would eat the entire head of a larger bird, because while the brains are most nutritious, the beak and rest of the skull are not. So for something larger than a vole or mouse, I figured they might just dig out the brain and leave the rest of the head.

Where do they cache the uneaten portions of prey? In a tree cavity? On the ground? Do they cover it with debris to hide it, or just shove it into some crevice?

 

[sourland]

They actually chew up the heads of the rabbits into pieces readily swallowed. Bone fragments from rabbits are generally about an inch in length and somewhat jagged-guess the fur and feathers consumed protects against internal damage - an interesting process whereby they eat the whole prey, digest that which they can, and then pelletize and upchuck the rest. I have found half eaten rabbits cached in brush piles, briar patches, and under hummocks of swamp grass or other overhanging grasses.

 

[Oregon Blues]

[[[[[[.........Where do they cache the uneaten portions of prey? ........]]]]]

The Great Horned Owl who lives in my yard prefers rabbits. I find back legs and chunks of rabbit fur draped over the top of my fence, at the corners where there is a bar on the top of the fence.

He will take jack rabbits. The jack rabbits here are enormous and extremely fast. They will be in the road and run right down the middle of the road in front of cars, so I clock them at 25 miles an hour. I frequently mistake them for coyotes in the distance because of their color and size. I have to look carefully to see that they are jack rabbits. They present no difficulty to the GHO. He eats a lot of them.

Because of the GHO, my birds go into covered runs at night. In 10 years time, the GHO's in my area have never bothered my birds or my very small dogs. But I take care of my animals and the owl does not have access to them during his hunting hours.

The owl lives in a tree just behind my orchard where the birds are loose during the day. He will sit on the power pole next to the orchard and he likes the trees right next to my house. He will come and sit in those trees during the day and watch me doing chores. I just ignore him.

My son has been twice and shot at crows that were mobbing him during the day. The crows kill my birds and steal eggs, so they are not welcome here. There aren't too many opportunities to shoot crows because they are very wily. But when they mob the owl, they stop paying attention to what is around them and it is possible to shoot at them. Other than that, we ignore the owl. After the crow shooting was when the owl started to perch in the tree by my house and watch me. I don't know if one has anything to do with the other.