As I walked out of my hotel room on Saturday morning with my USGS shirt on, the Master Falconer from Talons, A Bird of Prey Experience, walked out of her room. "Hey," said Lorrie Schumacher "that's where I'm going." I knew I had to go check out her birds. What I didn't expect is that she would offer to let me hold one.
As some of you know, I've seen the raptors as a sign of hope in the last few months. A sign that someone was watching over me. I count special the days that I see a hawk or bald eagle. I've always loved owls.
This is Mama. She's a Eurasian Eagle Owl. She weighed 5 lbs and has a 5 foot wing span. She was amazing. I got to hold her and pet her. She even cooperated for the picutre. It made the whole trip to Reston worth it, even though I didn't get to hold her for long. The Master Falconer took this one for me before the offical start of the Open House. She'd already started her show, as people who arrived early came straight to her birds. We had a rare pause in the people coming by. I'm glad we took this when we did. I wouldn't have had a chance later in the day, because the Open House was swamped, er... well attended, by 10,000+ people. Neither of us had any breaks during the day. I saw her again the next morning and thanked her again. If I ever get up to Hamilton, NY, I'll stop by. They offer "Hawk Walks" where you get to fly the birds... Where do I sign up? To see some more of the picutres I took, check my Flickr page.
To see some really great picutres of Lorrie's birds taken by Bob Quinn at the NCTC Open House on Oct 20, 2007 click here.
