Patricia Colburn, 10, backed away slightly when her mom, Denise Colburn, began to gently unwrap the foil casing of an owl pellet at Saturday’s Fall Family Field Trip Day run by Columbia Springs.
The pellet, made up of leftover bones, fur and other indigestibles hacked up by owls after a meal, initially grossed out the Peter S. Ogden Elementary fourth-grader.
“Oh my God, why do I have to do this?” she asked her mom.
“You don’t want to do this?” her mother responded calmly.
“Just, uh, take it off the foil,” Patricia said, poking at the greyish, furry ball with a toothpick as her mom dropped it onto a piece of laminated paper.
Family Field Trip Day is put on twice a year by the nonprofit group, which is headquartered at the historic Vancouver Trout Hatchery. It’s designed to teach elementary school age children and their families about nature through a variety of mushroom and nature hikes, and hands-on educational activities.
It was a less than stellar turnout on the rainy, windy Saturday, but the 150 or so participants that did turn up made up for the lack of a crowd with their enthusiasm.
“It’s way more interesting than I thought it would be,” said Danielle Henley, 11, a sixth-grader at Jason Lee Middle School, who found vertebrae, pelvic joints and several other bones in her pellet, which she dissected with her father, Travis Hill. “I thought it would be gross, but it’s cool.”
A similar transition from disgust to enthusiastic curiosity also came over young Patricia.
Once her pellet was unveiled, her mom flipped it over and pointed out some of the interesting bones inside.
And a few minutes later, Patricia was eagerly removing and pairing the bones up against a skeleton diagram of a rodent supplied by volunteers at the event.
“We’ve got this big old rib cage bone right here,” Patricia said gleefully, also unearthing a skull that she said may have come from a vole.
“An owl eats three times its body weight in a day — can you image that?” Colburn asked her daughter.
“I can’t, because I’m a picky eater,” Patricia said, giggling.
“So when they say you eat like a bird, that’s really not a compliment — because you’d have to eat three times your weight a day,” Colburn said.
Patricia smiled briefly before turning back to her work.
“Hey! I found a talon, or some sharp thing,” she said, pulling out a small claw.
Looking over the group of about 10 youngsters, environmental educator Katie Sombat shared a variety of fun facts about owls and their prey.
“The pellets, they’re pieces that the owl ate but can’t digest, and they go to the gizzard,” Sombat said. “After time, the owl will regurgitate them, puke them up. It’s gross, but it’s natural. And oftentimes, students can reconstruct the animal that the owl ate.”
Asked where owl pellets come from, she said there are actually several websites that sell them.
“There’s a market for owl puke,” Sombat said with a laugh.
Owls live everywhere except Antarctica, and when they leave pellets, the often do it in the same place every time, which makes them easy to find if you know what you’re looking for, she said.
“Owls are also really helpful animals,” Sombat said. “They kill rodents, and rodents carry diseases. Rodents also eat grain, and so when owls eat them, that helps farmers.”
Gala Miller, a staff member at Columbia Springs, said that usually about 200 people show up for the events, at least when the weather is better. The nonprofit also brings in school groups throughout the year to teach them more about the environment and natural sciences.
“They poke around in the wetlands, they get to practice the scientific method, and they have fun,” Miller said.
Hanging out by one of the fish pools, Michael Thompson, 8, a third-grader at York Elementary, showed off cardboard planter with compost and a fava bean that he had planted at the event.
Michael said he was eager to watch it grow. But he was quick to tell his mom, Cherine Thompson, that taking care of the plant didn’t mean he was about to eat any fava beans.
“No,” he said, scrunching his face. “Gross. I just want to grow it.”
He also dissected an owl pellet at the event, and was eager to show off part of a skull he uncovered within.
“We found bones and pieces in the puke,” Michael said. “We didn’t found a whole skull, but we found one side.”
He, Danielle and Patricia all got to keep the skull bits they found and take them home.
And that made Patricia much happier than she would have thought at first.
“It’s pretty cool,” Patricia said. “I’m probably going to show my teacher. That makes it even more cool.”
Columbia Springs is a partnership of the Evergreen School District, the city of Vancouver, Clark County, Clark College, Clark Public Utilities and the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife. For more information, visit http://columbiasprings.org
