Citizens for Conservation presents owl program
Citizens for Conservation (CFC) Youth Education had an idea to share even more of nature with the Barrington 220 School District.
Currently, CFC’ss volunteers provide their knowledge at the D220 fourth-grade field trips. However, volunteers wanted to do more.
With a grant from the Barrington Junior Women’s Club to help offset costs and with the approval from D220 Sunny Hill Elementary School, students were going to learn about owls.
Children in grades one to five were randomly selected to take part in this free educational opportunity. In addition, we asked family members, including caregivers, to attend the class so the whole family could participate.
As families arrived, they dropped off donations for the presenting organization. These included disinfectant wipes, old towels, paper towels, shoe boxes, sponges, and more.
After a brief introduction about CFC and about the class by Youth Education volunteers, Dawn Keller of Flint Creek Wildlife Rehabilitation brought out the first owl. The almost 100 attendees were in awe as Pennsylvania, a female great-horned owl, fluffed up her feathers to show off her beauty.
Everyone learned that female owls are twice as large as their male counterparts. Participants also learned about owl habitat, food preference, camouflage, how an owl uses its hearing to catch food, and they saw up close the glowing yellow eyes of the great-horned owl.
The next owl was Pip, a barn owl. Participants were surprised to see such a small owl with mostly white coloring. Pip thought he was going to free-fly and spread his wings for all to see.
Dawn explained how owls are not able to digest bones and fur, so that the owl regurgitates the matter like a cat expelling a hair ball. Dawn then told the participants they would be dissecting the bones and fur in an owl pellet.
Once the owls were safe in their transportation boxes, out came the pellets and directions on how to dissect them. Part of the educational process was the use of a printed guide, which every child received, to aid in the bone identification.
Children quickly found vole skulls (voles are a favorite meal of owls), a rat skull, bird skull, and several mouse skulls, along with a leg, hip and other bones. One child found a very large hip bone and thick leg bones, much too large for a mouse or vole.
With the assistance of Dawn’s expertise, the bones were identified as those of an immature chipmunk. To complete the experience, everyone had the opportunity to have their photo taken with Pennsylvania.
To learn more about CFC’s youth education classes, call (847) 382-7283, visit www.citizensforconservation.org, or email youth-ed@citizensforconservation.org.
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