iN PHOTOS: Kamloops photographer captures owl coughing up pellet, eating its prey

A Kamloops wildlife photographer didn’t realize she had captured the exact moment a northern pygmy owl coughed up a pellet until reviewing her photographs after the recent photo shoot.

“What began as a hopeful attempt to photograph a pygmy owl turned into one of my most memorable photography sessions,” Taylor Borth said.

Borth headed into the forested area in Kamloops on Feb. 8 looking to find a northern pygmy owl and found one perched on top of tree.

She watched as the owl caught a vole and landed on a branch, then photographed the bird eating its meal.

“The real surprise came when I reviewed my photos at home, I’d captured the moment the owl was coughing up a pellet,” she said. “I’m grateful I was at the right place at the right time.”

A northern pygmy owl clutches a vole in a tree in Kamloops. iNFOnews.ca/ Taylor Borth

Owls swallow prey whole or in large chunks, but can’t digest fur, teeth, bones or feathers, so they have two stomach chambers to help them digest prey, according to All About Birds.

All the digestible parts of the meal turn to liquid in the first stomach chamber, and what is left passes onto the second stomach where hard digestible pieces are ground down and moved to the intestines.

Whatever is left get compacted into a pellet the owl spits out.

Borth later looked around the forest floor and found the pellet the pygmy owl coughed up, and took it home to keep.

Got to Borth’s Instagram page to see more of her photography.

If you have an amazing wildlife photograph you want to share, send it to news@infonews.ca.

An owl eats its prey in a Kamloops forest. iNFOnews.ca/ Taylor Borth

An owl eats its prey in a Kamloops forest. iNFOnews.ca/ Taylor Borth

Northern pygmy owls, like this one spotted in Kamloops, have patters on the backs of their heads that look like false eyes to predators. iNFOnews.ca/ Taylor Borth