One of the events we chose to attend at the Festival of the Cranes, at Bosque del Apache, was the lecture and field trip called "All About Raptors," held on Thursday morning (Nov 15). Two raptor handlers gave the attendees a plethora of information regarding all types of raptors. They even brought many birds they use for education purposes, such as a red-tailed hawk and a great horned owl. These women were from The Wildlife Center located in Espanola, New Mexico, which is about 25-30 miles north of Santa Fe. Once we took to the "field" which was on the Wildlife Refuge, we got to see the release of a peregrine falcon. There were some extra "guests" who accompanied this group of attendees, namely Jeff Bouton (Leica Birding Blog) and Julie Zickefoose. Here is a link to a very short video I took of the release of the peregrine falcon. While also in the "field," Jeff Bouton spotted a "different" type of red-tailed hawk, a Harlan's red-tailed hawk. He was so good at describing the differences in the morph and coloring. If anyone should ever have the opportunity to go birding with this expert, please don't miss out on it, especially if you want to learn more than one can absorb in a day.
** Just a note to let you know that Blogger is giving me trouble today with uploading this 14 second (3 MB) video - so that is why there is a link rather than the Blogger video I tried to upload. I'll try to upload the video itself when Blogger decides to cooperate. ;o)
5 comments:
Hi Mary! I had seen a photo of the release on Julie's blog - the video is great!
I envy your vacation in New Mexico, not only for the wonderful birds you saw, but for meeting Julie and the family, too.
Thanks for sharing, Mary. I'm looking forward to seeing more.
Back to work on Monday? Me, too. Vacation time FLIES by so quickly... :o/
Such a wonderful release and so glad that you had such a great time!
Hi Mary,
It was great to bird with you, and I'm glad you got a dose of the natural wonder that is Jeff Bouton. If you haven't visited his Leica Birding Blog, you need to! It's at birdwatchersdigest.com .
That was so cool to see the peregrine release again. Thanks for posting that. Until we meet again...love your lynx spider story!
Hi Mary - I'm glad you like the video of the release. That was such an exciting thing to see. And I'm glad to see that JZ also posted a photo.
Hi Monarch - Glad you liked that video. Did you see Julie's photo? This presentation and field trip was one of the highlights of our trip.
Hi Julie - I'm so glad you visited my blog. I'm glad you liked the lynx spider posts. I'm still watching "mama" and babies. The spiderlings are only just a smidge bigger than the last time I posted a picture. I will probably continue posting a photo of them from time to time. So stop back now and then when you have the chance.
Mary,
It was a sincere pleasure birding with you, your husband, Julie, Robert, and all of the other wonderful folks on the all too short field component of the raptor trip. As a self-described avian savant, who has spent (literally) thousands of hours staring at raptors day in and day out, all spring, summer, and fall (and often winter too) for an entire decade, I'm happy that I'm able to share something from this time spent with others! Sadly, it never did much for my popularity as a young teen, but I'm certainly more than happy to share this knowledge with others today!
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