Chris's pellet collection

[Neil Rigby]

Well, last night was a bit dramatic, wasn't it? We spent a week watching the lapwing chicks being fed and a week watching the kestrel chicks being fed and then suddenly we find ourselves watching a lapwing chick being fed to a kestrel chick.

And how did we know that the lapwing chick being fed to the kestrel chicks was one of our lapwing chicks? Simple. Because the ring that you can see on the chick's leg as it disappears into the mother kestrel's mouth ... is a ring that we attached.

Cue Chris on last night's show saying how he would love to get into that nest box and look for any pellets that the the mother kestrel may have expelled. Then he could find the ring that the bird was unable to digest and identify the chick that was eaten, all in the name of good science.

Of course there are many people who would rather boil their head than fondle a pellet that a kestrel has just ejected. But Chris is no stranger to pellet fondling. In this clip he shows us his extensive collection of pellets as well as a number of other wildlife items that are close to his heart:


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