5 Thursdays with Raptors

I talked in my earlier post:"A day in Skagit" that I ran into Bud Anderson while he was doing one of his field trips with his class. So what happened was: we had seen a few cars parked at the side of the road so we pulled over to see if the cars spotted something interesting. Then It ended up being Bud and his class doing there field trip. They also had been watching a Gyrfalcon which is what we were hoping to see. Bud was impressed that I was so young and I was birding so he invited me to his five course class for free! This was so big because first of all the class normally costs $170! Second of all he is an expert on Raptors so I could learn lots from him and last of all it was so nice of him to invite me to his class. So I ended up going to the class. It was every Thursday evening at the Woodland park zoo. It was more aimed toward adults so I did not catch everything Bud talked about but I still learned a lot. I took lots and lots of notes. 

Bud's raptor class

When I took my field trip we unfortunately did not see another Gyrfalcon but we did see a lot of other awesome birds like Merlins, Kestrels and other hawks and falcons. 

Male and female American Kestrels

A juvenile Sharp-shinned Hawk

At the beginning of the field trip we watched them band a Barred owl, Red-tailed hawk and a Coopers hawk. 

Bud teaching us about Barred Owls before this bird was banded

Close up with the Barred Owl

Cooper's Hawk wearing a hood to keep it calm before it was banded

Measuring and banding the Cooper's Hawk

They tried to trap some Red-tailed hawks but did not catch any. The bait was a poor little European Starling but he would not get eaten thankfully because he Hawk that went for it would get tangled up in little plastic loops but still it will stress out the Starling same with the Voles they use as bait too. 

Around the end of class they would bring in a Raptor from the has Raptor flight program at the zoo. At the last day of class you were allowed to come early and get a tour of the Raptors from the flight program! The zoo is closed so no one else is there. You get to see the cages the birds live and sleep in. All the birds from the program are all there! They even bring some out to show everyone. There is a Spectacled owl, Peregrine falcon, Turkey vulture, Red-tailed hawk, Harris hawk, Aplomado falcon, Barn owl and a Saw-whet owl there was others but these were the highlights. The whole experience was really fun and I had a great time!!!

Meeting the Saw-whet Owl