Better out than in

My Blip muse has been notably absent of late (although I was grateful for yesterday's ironic offering.)

Today I took a quick turn to the coast before  dusk and she offered me this little rosy seed sausage (about 4cm long) lying on the turf  above the cliffs. I recognised it immediately as  a pellet of indigestible matter regurgitated by a bird, a raven perhaps or something that had been foraging the only berries still available  - ivy. The pulp provides good nourishment and the bird repays the favour by ejecting the toxic seeds to germinate elsewhere. I don't know why the seeds have turned pink, maybe they oxidise  in the open air. There was only one similar image I could find, from Dartmoor,  and it confirmed my supposition.

Many birds regurgitate, even small ones such as robins and blackbirds, but it is owls who are best known for getting rid of the bones and wing cases of their prey like this. In the course of searching for examples I was amazed to come across an art work by Alistair Mackie created entirely from the skulls of mice found in owl pellets. It really is worth a look.