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For a little bit brighter topic, I thought I'd tell you guys about the "Raptor Encounter" I got to have last spring at the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum in Tucson, AZ. This is from the livejournal entry that I posted shortly after the encounter.

Saturday, my aunt, uncle, mom and I all got up early to head to the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum. It’s a place on the far west side of town that is set up almost like a zoo of many different species of plants and animals that can be found in the Sonora Desert. We were there early because we had signed up to take place in something called the Raptor Encounter. It was kind of expensive -65 dollars for the encounter and admission to the park- but it was well worth it.

A little after 8, a lady named Marta Hernandez met us at the front of the park. It turns out, that she’s the head trainer for the free-flight program, which involves letting birds fly free, so that people can see what it might be like to see the birds in the wild, in their total splendor. She had us sign a couple of liability forms, then she took us to the “staff only” area of the museum. On the way there, we passed one of the docents who had an American Kestrel on his glove. She was a gorgeous bird, who’s name I later learned was Estrella. When we got to the building, we were instructed to sanitize our shoes in a diluted bleach solution that was outside, so that we wouldn’t track anything in that might hurt the birds.

Inside, we immediately got to see 5 different birds. There were two barn owls -one male, one female- and three more American Kestrels -two male (named Ace and Grasshopper) and one female (named Luna)- The female kestrel was kind of spazy. She kept flapping like trying to get away from her tether, while the males just sat there calmly and a little fluffed out the entire time. I just loved looking at the kestrels; they are such beautiful birds, and one of my favorites. I wanted to hold and/or touch one, but it was already so amazing being so close to them, that I didn’t ask. Marta told us that the birds housed here were in the museum’s education program, meaning that they traveled to nearby schools and were shown in front of the park as a means of teaching the public about raptors. As she was speaking, we got to see two screech owls (one named Granite), which were a lot smaller then I expected them to be. I pictured them being the size of a Barn or Great Horned Owl, but instead they were maybe 6 inches tall or so.

After looking at the education birds, she took us to the birds that are able to be seen by everyone. First she showed us the Caracara (sp?) and the black vulture, which were housed together. While not raptors, they are scavengers and Marta told us that the Caracara was actually found to be more closely related to hawks and falcons then other scavengers. The Caracara was so excited to see people. He just paced back and forth in front of where we were squawking and flapping excitedly and sometimes would fly us and cling to the cage in front of where one of us was standing. The vulture was considerably more calm, just sitting on the branch, not particularly interested in whether we were there or not. The next bird we looked at closely was the Greater Roadrunner. He’s a scavenger as well, but they have one in the free-flight program, so she wanted to talk a bit about him. This bird, was an absolute crack-up to watch. He must have fallen in love with my mom at first sight or something, because he kept doing the roadrunner’s mating behavior to my Mom. He would stand in front of her, waving his tail back and forth and offing her nesting material. Marta said she had never seen the bird do this before, though she knew that it was the common mating behavior for the roadrunners. The enclosure next to the roadrunner housed the Pygmy Owls, which are a protected species in Arizona, and I think all across the US as there are very few of them left. They’re very small and at first we thought they were Elf Owls, but the actually happened to be in the cage right next door. It was amazing to see how tiny these birds were.

Now we get to the really fun stuff…..
After looking at those birds, we made our way into another “staff only” area, where we saw several smaller structures. One happened to have a black vulture sitting on top of it! As we got closer, we realized that the structures were, in fact, cages and there happened to be two docents standing in front of them with birds. One was holding a Barn Owl, the other was holding a large bird that I couldn’t readily identify. Marta let us guess a few times as to the bird’s species, but when we couldn’t get it after a few tries, she went ahead and told us that this was their female Ferruginous Hawk, named Hyla. Marta told us that Ferruginous Hawks are the largest species of hawk in the US, which I though was pretty cool. After a few more minutes with Hyla, we went over to the other docent, who was holding the Barn Owl. We were told that the owl’s name was Dusk and that both birds were involved in the Free-Flight program. We spent a few more minutes outside with Dusk, before Marta led us into one of the cage-like structures that were actually broken up into several enclosures, as we passed a third docent that was holding a Harris Hawk.

The first cage on the right housed another roadrunner that I believe had the name of Blaze. We didn’t spend much time with him as we had already looked at the other roadrunner. The first cage on the left had another Barn Owl named Ty, who turned out to be a bird that had imprinted on humans. As such he was constantly squawking for food and displaying other baby behaviors, as he hadn’t learned adult behaviors from adult birds. The next cage on the left was occupied by a Prairie Falcon by the name of Frank, which had been donated to the Free-Flight program. Marta told us that he wasn’t currently participating, however, as he recently got into a tangle with a wild Prairie Falcon that apparently lives in the area and though that Frank was invading his territory.

The final cage in the enclosure was also the biggest and we were actually allowed to step inside, where there were four Harris Hawks tethered to individual perches. Once we were inside, she had us stand against the wall, where we could have easily reached out and touched any one of the four birds. The first thing she asked us when we were situated was if we could identify which bird was the female. I looked down the line and noticed that one bird was substantially larger then the others and I asked if it was that bird. Turns out I was right! Harris Hawk females are apparently about 30% larger then the males and this one’s name was Felicity. The other three in the cage were males by the name of Jaws, Baja and Bashful. We also learned that the one on the glove of the docent we had passed was named Grumpy. We probably spent at least 15 minutes in that cage admiring the birds, and learning about them and their family structure, which is actually quite interesting and complex.

After we left the cage, we were told that we would now have a photo opportunity with either a Harris Hawk or a Barn Owl, and that we would actually get to hold them! We all opted to hold a Harris Hawk, and followed Marta outside to where we were going to take the pictures while one of the docents got Felicity out of the enclosure. While we were waiting for Felicity, Marta gave us each gloves and showed us the proper way to hold her and her tether, to keep us safe and to keep her from inadvertently getting away. My aunt was the first to hold her, followed by my uncle. And then me!

Me and Felicity

After we were done with Felicity for the moment, one of the docents took her back to her cage, while Marta led us to a free-flight enclosure, where they train the birds, followed by two other docents, one holding Dusk the Barn Owl, and the other holding Baja, the youngest of the Harris Hawks. Two other docents followed a little bit later, with Chihuahuan Ravens in boxes, named Einstein and Solo. Marta had us go into the enclosure, along with the docent holding Dusk. The docent put Dusk down on a low to the ground perch in the cage and Marta explained to us what we were going to be doing.
Basically one person at a time would step to the center of the enclosure, and stand with their back to the bird, while the others stood to the side with their left hand behind their back (because it had the glove on it, and we didn’t want to confuse the birds). Then Marta would put a small piece of raw meat on the glove, and we would hold it out to the side, where the birds could see it. If all went well, the bird was supposed to fly to our glove and then return to the perch when we turned around. And we would each get to do this twice with each bird.

Again my aunt went first, then my uncle. Then it was my turn again. While having a raptor sit on your hand is entirely cool…having a bird fly and land on your hand is even cooler. It was so amazing. Whats even cooler is that when Dusk flew to your hand, you couldn’t even hear her until right before she landed, because Barn Owls have that silent flight capability. It’s kind of cool to have them take off from your hand as well, as sad as it is to see them go. You can really feel them launch themselves with their powerful talons. Here’s my uncle with her. I just love her coloring.

Uncle and Dusk

Again my Mom was last to go, with Dusk. My uncle caught this amazing shot of Dusk coming in for a landing.

Mom and Dusk

After we all got to have Dusk land on us twice, we all got to have Baja, the Harris Hawk land on us twice. It was interesting to watch him fly, because it was entirely different from the way the Barn Owl flew. The barn owl’s flight was rather direct to the glove, but Baja came in close to the ground and then swooped upward at the last minute. Kind of reminded me of something a stunt pilot would try. Unlike the other times, I got to be the first one to have the Harris Hawk land on me. Again, it was totally cool! *squeals* Here’s a good pic of Baja with his wings spread as he’s landing on my aunt’s glove.

Aunt and Baja

After all of that, Marta asked us to step outside of the cage while she brought in the Ravens. They were trying an experiment with them to see if they can learn to distinguish between similar shapes. They had flower like shapes that they spread out all over the bottom of the enclosure, each shape having either 3, 4 or 5 petals. They had been consistently doing this thing for about a week, putting food rewards on the bottom of all the ones with 4 petals every time. The first bird she sent out, Einstein, was having trouble and didn’t seem to quite make the connection yet, as (s)he turned over just random ones. The other Raven, Solo, seemed to do better however. The first few of them were random, but then (s)he started to consistently go to the ones with 4 petals. Both times, Marta had a voice recorder out, listing everything the birds did, so that they could have the information for their study.

After all this, our behind the scenes part was basically over and a docent led us over to where there was a group of people waiting behind a barrier to watch the free flight demonstration. We of course stayed to watch the free flight. Its amazing how awed you can be just watching these birds fly free, even though you just held some moments earlier. I never cease to be amazed at the beauty and grace of the flight of a raptor. The birds they brought out for this free flight were their Great Horned Owl (who’s name I didn’t catch), Dusk and Hyla, the Ferruginous Hawk. The Great Horned Owl didn’t actually fly, as she can’t see well anymore, but Marta went along the crowd, so that everyone could get a good look at her. Dusk was the second bird to come out, then Hyla. Afterwards, Marta stood at the end of the barrier with Hyla on her fist, letting people come up and look more closely at her and ask questions. That’s when my uncle took this shot.

Marta and Hyla


After lunch we hurried to the Harris Hawk free flight, and just barely made it in time. They had 4 of the birds flying around, (in order of family ranking) Felicity, Grumpy, Baja and Jaws. Felicity kept showing her dominance over the males by knocking them off of perches and soaring. It’s a wonder how those birds could repeatedly land on top of cactus without injuring themselves. The demonstration lasted for 10-15 minutes or so and Marta took Felicity and walked over to where she had been with Hyla earlier to answer questions and such, while docents went about rounding up the other birds. Baja and Grumpy proved to be no problem to round up, but Jaws was another story. He was contently sitting in a tree and ignored the docents best efforts to lure him down. This went on for a good ten minutes at least, while Marta was finishing up the Q&A session. We stayed and watched, finding the situation somewhat amusing. It turns out that it was a good thing that we stuck around, because one of the docents came up to us telling us that Marta wanted to talk to us about our pictures with Felicity.

She came by us a few minutes later and handed off Felicity to a different docent, before making her way over to where Jaws was still perched in the tree. I laughed, because as she got close to him, she said “Hey there knucklehead,” in the affectionate manner of a parent to a child. She held up a large food reward and immediately got his attention, even though the other docents had done the same thing before. He flew off the branch, seeming to be cooperating, but swerved and flew past her at the last second before landing on the ground nearby. Marta followed and showed him the food again and this time he finally flew to her glove.

After Jaws was secured, Marta approached us again and informed us that the pictures that she thought she had taken of my Mom and me had not come out, as the camera had accidentally gotten switched to video mode when she took them. So…my mom and I got to hold Felicity again while she took new photos. whee

I would love to get my falconer's license as well. That is one of my goals after I finish my degree. 3nodding