Plethora of Pellets

What an intrepid group of nature hikers I have here on the Cape. Although we had had 4 gloriously blue days, on the day of our walk, the clouds rolled back in, the wind picked up and the rain began to fall giving it that raw feel that only a peninsula surrounded by water at this latitude, can have in March. But bless my ladies, they came anyway and what was their reward? A plethora of pellets! Owl pellets. Great Horned Owl pellets to be more precise-a bonanza by anybody’s measure.

We were revisiting the area that the "cacophony of crows" had taken place the other day, and as we fanned out under the pine trees, little shrieks of delight rang out, mostly from me, I will admit, but what a find! The forest floor was littered with at least a half dozen pellets, some with dark fur of mouse, some with lighter fur of squirrel or rabbit, with bones sticking out every which way! Fabulous! I keep hoping to find their nest site, but before I jump to my usual, over-the-top-excited conclusions, it may simply have been a roost, a place they like to go to eat because the view is good, the ambiance is to their liking or whatever.

Now at the risk of boring you, and ruining my vow to keep this to three paragraphs at the most, I feel I MUST tell you some of the cooler things about how a pellet is made. You know that owls swallow their food either whole, if it’s a bite-size, little mouse, or in chunks, if it is a rabbit or something larger, but obviously, no chewing is taking place. They don’t have a crop as some birds do but instead it goes right into their stomach. Their stomach has two parts, the first, and I will spare you the technical name, has enzymes to digest it, and the second, the gizzard, strains out the good stuff from the bad. Good goes onto intestines and builds a bigger, better owl, and the indigestible parts; fur, teeth, bones, feathers etc. get wadded up into the pellet, which, by the way, is the size and the shape of the gizzard. So, you are seeing the shape of its gizzard when you see the pellet. Also cool.

Then that pellet, all nicely packed together, makes a return trip back to the first stomach where it stays for ten hours, and I don’t know why that is, thinking about its destiny or something. And now, with a pained expression on its face and it’s throat stretched out, out comes the pellet from its beak, plop onto the forest floor where you, the lucky hiker, may find it. Amazing!

And doubly amazing, a delicate little vole skull, as in the one we found yesterday, can go through all this with nary a scratch or a crushed cranium. And why is that you ask? Because the owl, unlike the hawk, or say even a snake, both of whom have tougher enzymes at work, has a weak little stomach that sends things back in good enough shape to be reassembled, albeit by someone with a lot of time on their hands, later. It makes for great scientific research on exactly what they are eating, and fun party games too. You can order pellets and have everyone dissect them and see who was who on the menu that day.

OK, this is long, but how could I have passed on sharing that. The next cocktail party you’re at, fishing around for conversation starters, you can launch into the creation of pellets and be the hit of the party. One other thing to think about, when the pellet is sitting there in its holding pen for 10 hours, it is blocking the digestive track so the poor dear can’t eat until he regurgitates it. Then its supper time again. 10 hours or more later! Reasons perhaps to be glad you are a human and not an owl. I for one couldn't hold out that long. Enough Pat, yes enough.