Question: What is the most informative part of finding out a birds diet, droppings or vomit?

Renata Medeiros answered on 18 Jun 2013:

There is no agreement about that! Some of my colleagues are crazy for vomit and some go for droppings. I vote for droppings not just because I think it’s more informative but because it’s less disturbing for the birds if you get their droppings but with vomit it’s a bit more complicated. Sometimes birds vomit but you can’t always count on it so some people make the birds vomit and I don’t really like doing that because it is stealing their meals! The advantage of the vomit is that you can actually see the bits of food but if the birds ate very small or soft animals these will not be easy to find. With the droppings you have to use laboratory techniques to find the DNA of the prey but you are more likely to find everything they ate.