We gathered at 7am, packed into vans, and headed off over the pass into Eastern Washington. Three hours later we arrived at Crab Creek near the Wanapum reservoir. I stepped out onto a completely different landscape: sage brush, Russian olive trees, sandy soil, magpies and meadowlarks. Oh, and lots of ticks. And sun!
We headed off for a 4.5 hour wander. My 'clan' decided to set the focus of survival for our wander - acting as if we were out here for an indeterminate amount of time, and would need to have all of our needs met from this landscape. It was only six weeks until we would go on our 5-day survival trip and would be doing that for real!
After only a couple of minutes Monique noticed a bird nest in a sage brush. I always expect nests to be higher up, but when the choice is only between Russian olive trees and sage, some are bound to be built in the sage. Seeing it reminded us that we might find some eggs! What other food sources might we find out there?
Since the area was used often by hunters, there were some odd things lying around here and there like bottles, beer cans, a pr0n magazine, and what looked like a small wooden pallet. I picked up the pallet to see what might be sheltered under it, expecting a snake. Instead, I found a family of 8 deer mice! I was startled and wanted to drop the pallet, but also didn't want to squish any, so I fought my reaction and gently lowered it down. Whoa!
We wondered around a bit more, finding a badger hole and some beautiful wild onions, before deciding to have lunch. Making fire in the desert is so very different from the West side of the Cascades! Once you have a little flame, you can just dump a pile of woody material on top and it will catch fire. No need to dink around with building a little teepee kindling structure and feeding it twigs and such -- just cram anything burnable on top and it will ignite! My admiration of the desert was growing bigger by the moment.
We started eating the lunches we had packed when I said, "Hey, we're supposed to be on a survival trek here ... I know where we can get some meat!" Marcus, Will and I headed back to the pallet. We gave thanks to the mice and asked that one of them offer itself up to us for our learning experience. Will took off his Chacos and handed one to me as a hunting tool. Before Marcus drew up the pallet he asked, "Are you sure? You've got to be committed to this." We agreed. He pulled up the pallet, I arched the Chaco sandal back, took aim, and Will blurted out, "They're sooo cute!"
I was flustered, but time was running out for us to catch our meal -- mice were scattering and I was committed to bringing one back to the fire. I began whacking away, and was able to hit one of them. Two firm whacks later and it was ready to be our lunch. We brought it back to the rest of our clan where we tucked it into the coals. Five minutes later we pulled it out. The hair and skin scraped off easily. We gutted it, and then decided to put the mouse back into the fire, since we didn't really know what we were doing and wanted to make sure to cook out any Hanta virus. Two minutes later we had a little roast. We portioned it out, with me getting the breast region. The bones were so small that they could be eaten along with the rest of the animal. Guess what? It tasted great! I would actually enjoy eating mouse again, any time! I can imagine a restaurant where you could get a plate of mouse poppers: 5 mouse roasts lined up in a row. Mmmm! Really!! The only real negative about this snack is that it didn't really fit in with my raw foods diet very well.
We scouted our fire, which is also much easier than on the West side. Out wandering again, we came across several Magpie nests. These were up in the thorny Russian olive trees, made of thorny twigs, and covered with a thorny roof. Quite impenetrable to anyone nonhuman. Marcus scrambled up a couple and found some eggs in one! We decided it was only fair that we stole one, knowing the Magpie's propensity for same. We would boil it that evening and discover that it tastes exactly like a chicken egg. And heck, one more thing that isn't on my raw foods list.
We thought we heard a grouse next, and so each grabbed something resembling a throwing stick. (I was going to explore the throwing properties of a partially full Nalgene.) This day was turning out to be a feast! We spread out, entering the grove of Russian olives from several sides. I went to the far side so as to flush the grouse back toward the rest. It was then that I saw something fly past me. It seemed big, like a bird-of-prey of some sort. My mind went through all my search images, matching the blur I saw with every other similar image I had stored. As usual, it came up empty. "Not enough data," it seemed to say. I called Will over to point to where I had seen the bird land. A minute later the answer came flying back toward us: a Long-eared Owl (Asio otus)!
Marcus had discovered a tree in the olive grove which had a lot of whitewash on the lower branches, and a pile of something under it. Just as he began to wonder if the pile contained pellets Will shouted, "It's an OWL!" Will searched the tree and found the location where the owl sat to eat it's prey .. and even found a recently killed mouse laying there! The Audubon Field Guide to North American Birds states the owl "is strictly nocturnal." However, since the mouse wasn't yet stiff I expect it had been killed within the hour. Tough day to be a mouse.
We stepped back to give the owl a comfortable amount of space to return to it's feeding area. After 20 minutes it had not returned so Marcus went out to explore other areas. We decided to wait a little bit more, but no owl. I called out my thanks to the owl, wherever it was, for offering its teaching that day. Just then it flew back into our line of sight and began to settle into its feeding spot when it must have seen us and flew off again.
I noticed Marcus running over to us, waving us to come follow him. He had quite a story to tell! Marcus had seen a couple of Magpie nests and decided to take a peek to see if there were any more eggs to be found. The first nest looked like it was in great shape, built this spring. No eggs in it however. Then he had gone over to the tree containing the second nest he had seen. It looked like it must have been last year's model: a dilapidated nest that was more oval than round at the top. He climbed up the tree anyway just to see what was inside. He had climbed to within five feet of it when a huge owl raised up and flapped away! We all gathered at the base of the tree, wondering if this was the same owl, or if the papa owl had been the one hunting mice.
Marcus said he had continued climbing the tree after the owl flew off, and found it contained four eggs. I mentioned that I wanted to bring one of those eggs back, and he replied something about not feeling right about it because of owls being sacred. "Come on! When will you ever be able to say you tasted owl eggs?" I asked. This seemed to sway him. Marcus said he was now OK with us grabbing an egg to take back, and that we should get the cracked one as it was already damaged. Perfect!
Will climbed up and handed down the cracked egg. There were only slight hairline cracks in the egg, barely noticeable. I wondered why it would be cracked, but decided that some eggs must get damaged due to the mother's weight not being distributed correctly. Marcus handed the egg to me so I could feel how warm it was. The egg was much larger than the Magpie egg, though not up to Large Grade A chicken standards of course. We passed the egg around the group, and then Marcus held it a bit more, staring at this little marvel. Suddenly he jumped and shouted, "It's moving! Put it back, put it back!!" The egg was actually moving around a bit in Marcus's hand! He quickly handed it back up to Will, who placed the egg back into the location it had come from. So that was why the egg was cracked ... it wasn't damaged at all, there was a wee little owl in it trying to get out! I climbed the tree and shot a few pictures. I could even hear the scratching noise the owlet was making on the inside of its shell and captured the sound on my camera!
We climbed back down and moved off 30 yards to give the mother owl plenty of space so she could get back to mothering. About a half hour later the owl returned and settled into her nest. We crawled a bit closer, to a rise in the earth that gave a vantage point where we could get one last look at her in the nest before we went back to meet up with the other groups in our class. From there we could see her laying across the eggs and nestled in. It was then that I finally gained a perspective that would close the circle on the day. The day began with an exercise in survival for us: looking for eggs and other things to eat. It would now end with an understanding of another creature's intent of survival. I felt in my body how scared the owl had been. I could sense her terror at having a human climb up to her babies in her nest - climb so close that she had to abandon them in order to preserve her own life. I sensed that she was glad to be back with them, but also still stirred inside over the event. I felt ashamed at my own lackadaisical attitude toward finding the eggs and learning that one of them was in the process of hatching. I felt now more connected to the whole process, the whole circle of life. I apologized to the owl for scaring her, and thanked her for sharing such huge lessons.
What an incredible day occurred in those four-plus hours. Really incredible.
