Big birds
July 27, 2008
Today I took a break from studying and Brian and I went to the Cascades Raptor Center.
There were three bald eagles at the center--but we see these all the time around here...
We’ve meant to visit ever since we moved to Eugene. We saw a talk featuring a dark morph Swainson’s hawk, and a “developmentally delayed” barn own. The birds on display are only the ones that have no chance of being released back into the wild due to serious impairment from injuries. They have 63 birds on view, and who knows how many more being rehabilitated.
You can't really tell from the photo, but these golden eagles were monsterous.
We got to see some birds being fed; the rodent eaters get dead mice or rats, depending on how big the bird is, and the bird hunters get dead chicken chicks. These white tailed kites, below, got two chicks each for lunch.
The two kites had brain damage due to heat stroke when they were fledglings.
The vultures had signs all over their enclosure, like every two feet, that said "I bite hard!" I wonder how many fingers this one has tried to take off...
One of the turkey vultures was pretty endearing, believe it or not. She was very imprinted on people, and was all about trying to get you to interact with her. She obviously had pretty good success in getting people to stick their fingers through the chain link, judging by all the signage.
Brian and the birds.
