Sunday, February 15, 2009

Birds of Prey on Valentine's Day

For Valentine's Day, we took the kids to a wonderful Kids in Nature presentation at the Timpanogos Monument Visitor's Center, done by the Skymasters Wildlife Foundation in Utah. We had a great time, even though the weather and roads were a little dreary. The park was beautiful!

Peregrin Falcon. There is a pair of these birds that nest at the entrance to Timpanogos Cave, and can be heard/seen bringing food to their young. We can't wait to see if we can hear/see them this summer.

Gyre Falcon:

Red-Tailed Hawk, one of our famliy favorites, and one we see in the wild in our area a lot.


Comparing Hawks & Falcons:



Harris Hawk, from Arizona. They did a number of flight demonstrations with this bird, standing at one end of the room and having it fly to the other end. It was fun for the kids to feel the wind created by it passing by.

Cockatiel? This bird was brought to help show/discuss the difference between birds of prey, and raptors, as it has a sharp beak and claws, but isn't considered a raptor.

Screech Owl-- the kids were able to pet this guy at the end of the presentation.

Another Hawk, I can't remember his species.

Great Horned Owl

And the highlight of the event, Golden Eagles!! This is a 3 year old female named Holly. One highlight for the kids was when she tried to take off, and because of her weight and size and strength the handler had a hard time getting her back on his arm. I'm sure it wasn't a highlight for him, but the kids really enjoyed all the flapping.

Rage, the 1 year old male golden eagle, apparently so named because he's pretty viscious. This guy was helping himself to a number of lambs at a ranch in Colorado and was going to end up shot unless someone was able to come trap him and take him away, which Skymasters was luckily able to do. At the end of the presentation the kids were able to get really close to this fellow.
This comes in the middle of our bird studies with our science book God's Design for Life: The Animal Kingdom, so it was wonderful to see first hand the beaks, talons, different feathers we have been discussing, as well as listen to the wonderful information given for each species from the handlers.

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