Birds of Prey

It's the season for watching bald eagles along the rivers here, but we missed my favorite eagle-watching event a few weeks ago because it was just too cold to be standing out on a bridge over a frozen river. However there was a similar event the next weekend when we had a nice warm day where people bring high-powered binoculars and cameras to share around so more people can view any eagles in the area. Also the World Bird Sanctuary brings a little team of birds in their care who cannot be released back into the wild and therefore star in educational programs in the area. We only saw one bald eagle in the trees across the river, but the kids were fine with that because they had so much fun learning about the other birds.

The World Bird Sanctuary has an animal hospital that takes in and rehabilitates injured birds. Many of them are released after they heal, but some have permanent injuries that would make it impossible for them to survive back in the wild. this bald eagle was left with vision impairment after a tussle with a car. It was amazing to see how big they are close up - almost as tall as Edie! And we learned that even at that size, this bald eagle only weighs about 7 - 8 pounds, and total his feathers account for more of that weight than his bones. Neat!

This kids have been reminding me of all the fun facts they learned for weeks. This barred owl can turn his head three quarters of the way around, which he needs to be able to do because his eyes can't move in their sockets like ours can, because his eyes are shaped like light bulbs, not globes like ours. If you don't believe me, ask one of the kids. They'll tell you.

And the peregrine falcon is the fastest animal on earth, exceeding 200 miles per hour when diving to catch another bird in mid-air.

And this little screech owl is named Data and was their favorite. You can tell by his eyes being lighter, not solid black like the barred owl, that he hunts more at dusk and dawn rather than in the darkest part of the night.

And all of the birds were perfectly happy to sit tethered on their perches because most birds of prey spend 80-90% of their time just roosting.

My kids, however, do not, so as soon as they had no more questions for the educators, we trekked out on a little trail.

It paralleled a mostly frozen creek for quite a while, and every time there was an opening to get from the trail to the creek, we had to take it. And then the kids spent a surprisingly long time throwing rocks at the ice, trying to make cracks and holes. It didn't work, but we did manage to litter the frozen creek with dozens of rocks on top of the ice.

When that got boring, they took some rocks and sticks and broke off chunks of ice from the shore to throw into the water flowing in the middle and watch the ice chunk go over a tiny waterfall under a bridge of water still frozen. This last long enough that Edie, who was cold and snuggled on my back, started yelling at them to hurry up.

You can't see it, but there's an ice chunk flowing under that ice bridge.

And then I pulled them away and we continued on the trail, and then they found another spot to bang sticks through ice. So we didn't actually make it very far mileage wise, but it was a fun winter hike nonetheless. And we'll definitely be visiting the World Bird Sanctuary soon to see more of their birds!