Yes, interesting Denise! Nice capture. I have seen this behavior in a number of other bird species (thrushes, mockingbirds and waxwings) and we know that owls do it.
Excellent capture. Birds usual gives some clues that they are about to cast off a pellet but it still happens pretty fast and you have to be on your toes to capture it.
That is too funny...check out the link below - from a while back ;-) Same behaviour, same species, same angle! Yours is a "cleaner" image, and I like the closed eye and projecting tongue!
Daniel, That is awesome! It looks like your bird was working it out slowly-unless it just appears that way.This one happened in 2 frames.The frame before you can see him working it up.
Shorebirds do sometimes eject pellets of larger prey remains, but there's an even cooler phenomenon in a Dutch note published about 30 years ago, in which is was found that whimbrels periodically eject the keratinised lining of the gizzard! That would be quite some photo. :-)