We drove up on Monday morning, and though the photography workshop was not until Tuesday evening, we spent Monday afternoon and Tuesday in the Gardens. On Tuesday morning, we attended the Birds of Prey demonstration and had a great time. We were pretty much all by ourselves in the ampitheatre until a class of about 7 year old ran down at about 3 minutes before the show began. I'm not going to lie, I was a bit wary about them being there at first but it was a lot of fun! Best part (read: not the best part), one of the parents sat beside me and asked which one was my kid!!
The first bird of prey was a Red Tailed Hawk. Little did I know that these hawks are (well maybe were) referred to as chicken-hawks (like from the Foghorn Leghorn cartoons). Our curator for the day informed us of this fun fact, though I think this tidbit of information was lost on the 7 year olds who probably have never heard of Foghorn Legorn! What a sad, sad world.
After the Red Tailed Hawk (I can't remember her name, it was like Marina or Manola or Malina...oh that is what it is! Malina! [stream of consciousness writing JUST happened]), we were introduced to Olive the Barred Owl. Olive was absolutely beautiful! I felt like she was staring into my soul with those black beady eyes!!
The curator made a joke about what owls eat, "Owls eat small rodents, mice, squirrels, small children, rats, etc..." and one of the little girls piped up and was like "wait, what!" It was cute!
After Olive, we were introduced to a couple of free flight birds. The first was a Great Horned Owl (I really can't remember their names, I was too enthralled with watching them fly through the crowd).
During the presentation of the Great Horned Owl, my most memorable part of the trip happened. She (maybe it was a he, but I don't think so), flew in for a treat (and I don't mean peanut butter cup) and spotted an Eagle that WAY WAY off; the poor owl freaked out. When I say freaked, I mean FREAKED! Look at the picture above...normal Owl, and look at the picture below....
Her eyes constricted and she blew up; I think she grew about 3 sizes bigger (it reminded me of a cat the way she crouched into a defensive position). The poor thing was so scared that the curator had to come and bribe her off the stump and coax her back to her home. It was a truly amazing event, as none of us even saw the Eagle but the Owl saw it immediately!
The last bird was a Harris Hawk. This kind of hawk is not found in this area of the US (it is a desert bird). She also performed some theatrics for us, but nothing like the poor Great Horned Owl. This is a beautiful bird, with such clean lines and so sleek. Crazy part was, she looked tiny compared to the Red Tailed Hawk.
More to follow as we had a great week!
Oh and for those inquiring about where Allie the dog was, she stayed in the cabin during the bird show; if she attended, she may have become part of the show (in a very bad way)!
No comments:
Post a Comment