Saturday, September 02, 2006

A memorable day at Mitchell Memorial

I survived my first real program. This holiday weekend, the Hamilton County Park district and RAPTOR get together for some hot bird of prey action. They bring some birds, we bring some birds. Geoff brought the girls along later because they love to see Mommy handle big scary raptors.
Birds I took today:
Male Red-tailed hawk (Two Socks)
Great Horned Owl (Sylvester)
Peregrine Falcon (Lucy)
American Kestrel (Steel)
The park brought:
Eastern Screech Owl
Barred Owl
Female Red-tailed hawk
Black Vulture
Hey, who's kid is that trying to sneak under the rope?

Big Eyed Lucy. Have I mentioned that I love her?
Geoff said I did a good job. But he might be biased. But he might be telling the truth.
The girls love Lucy, too. Everyone loves Lucy.
The area was roped off to keep curious fingers from being bitten off.
Tomorrow is a different park, and Marc and Cindy were good enough to help out since we will be in Columbus. And Monday, David, the "old" director and I will be splitting the four hours.
Tomorrow we are doing our annual pilgrimage to Columbus to visit friends of Jim and Rita's from college days. They have a daughter and son-in-law who have two girls about the same ages as Isabelle and Lorelei. And these friends are birders, so the subject of birds just might come up. Yay!

7 comments:

Shannon said...

Susan I am sure that you were GREAT!! Lots of love and hopefully I will get out to one of your programs soon.

LauraHinNJ said...

So when are you bringing your tour to NJ?

I'm sure you did great! Enthusiasm is important and I know you've got that.

How comfortable are the birds out in the open like that? I bet they love seeing and hearing the outdoors!

Susan Gets Native said...

Shannon,
Thanks...and you just better get out to one of my programs! I will be at Farbach-Warner (off Colerain) Monday 2-4 pm. Jake would love it!
Laura,
The birds were so well-behaved. Of course, every 20 minutes or so, Two Socks would lunge for the sky only to be brought up short by his tether. but he kept trying. Even though they are "trained", they are still wild and would like to be anywhere but with us.
But the bird group was quite peaceful today. I was proud of them. Lively enough that people don't say "Oh, those poor birds, just sitting there" and quiet enough for us to relax and watch them.

Dave Dorsey said...

Excellent Susan. You don't get to see many wild birds in their natural territory. It's nice that you can with these non-releasable birds.

Endment said...

Cheers for you ---
Wish I could have gotten to watch :)

birdchick said...

Hi Susan Gets Native,

Looks like the program went well. That's a cute little black vulture. I've never worked with one of of those. How much do they weigh?

Susan Gets Native said...

Sharon (Birdchick)
That's the park district's BV...our TV weights about 3 pounds, so the BV probably weighs 2.5 pounds or so.
Thanks for stopping by!