The Lyons Share

House of Horrors

Posted by Graeme Lyons , Sunday, 31 October 2010 16:31

I spend a lot of time outside and over the years I have found lots of skulls of many different species so I thought I would post a Halloween themed blog showing you some of the more interesting ones I have stumbled across  The first one is pretty obvious, probably a Hebridean ram. (they are ping-pong balls by the way). This one I found at Stedham earlier this year and there were still feathers nearby to clinch the ID, it's a Kestrel.

Another bird and this one's a Tawny Owl found dead at Woods Mill a few years ago. Note how big the eye cavities are.

Back to the mammals now and these should be fairly familiar. From the top to the bottom we have Rabbit, Badger, Fox and Roe Deer.

This Roe Deer skull is missing the 'nose', it reminds me of the rabbit from Donnie Darko. I think skulls are incredibly beautiful and fascinating. I recently did a talk at a school in Brighton and showed the kids a load of different skulls that I had found and it was amazing how excited they were. There is certainly an instinctive fascination there.

I took an hour out today to go and look for the Pallas's Warbler that was found at Sheepcote Valley on the edge of Brighton. I didn't see the bird but I did stumble upon a Dartford Warbler at very close range which was a nice surprise.

Posted in birds, bones, Brighton, mammals, Migrants, Sheepcote Valley

4 Response to "House of Horrors"

Anonymous Says:

coooool. I think the Tawny Owl skull is my fav. I found this last winter,
http://lizsterry.com/2010/02/07/found-this-while-walking-my-dogs/

31 October 2010 at 19:01

Graeme Lyons Says:

Thanks for the comment! Hard to see what it is but do you think it was perhaps a deer? Sheep also look quite similar to this too.

31 October 2010 at 19:30

Sterry Says:

i think its a deer, i often see deer on that walk.

31 October 2010 at 20:35

Anonymous Says:

Nice collection Graeme... quite a few Pallas's arrived on the east coast today, I wonder if we might be due a good lot in November. I've only seen one, the bird at Brighton Marina (back in 1998?). It was in the tiniest patches of scrub next to the ASDA car park. Unfortunately those in Sheepcote seem to be less easy to pin down.

First Sussex Waxwings of the winter (I think) reported today from Angmering, looking forward to stumbling across a few (hundred) sometime soon.

31 October 2010 at 20:42