Backyard and Beyond

This may be a rat claw.
One of several found in this pellet. Pellets are regurgitated hair/feathers/bones/etc. that get spit up by predatory birds.
More claws in this pellet, found a day earlier elsewhere.
Also full of claws. Again, possibly rat. Owls tend to gulp their prey whole-hog, but I’ve seen American Kestrels and Cooper’s swallow the feet of their bird prey, tiny little toenails and all, business end up, meaning they go down the hatch with the points facing out.
This pellet, much smaller, may have came from a Saw-whet. One or more has been seen locally this winter, although not by me. This pellet was all hair.
This beast, like the larger ones above, surely didn’t come from a Saw-whet, though.
And here’s another, found already scattered like this. Some rodent jaws, with those long, long teeth. A bit cold to extract them today, but here’s one from a year ago. I’m intrigued by the pinkish thread bits.

Other birds produce pellets: raptors, gulls, corvids, cormorants, kingfishers.