Monday, October 20, 2008

That's My World Tuesday

Welcome to my submission to the inaugural edition of the new meme that's My World Tuesday. The purpose behind My World Tuesday is to become a virtual tourist guide sharing your world and what you love about it with others on the web. So of all of the really cool places that I spend my free time I decided to begin with a place where I volunteer my time every Wednesday afternoon.
Welcome to The Raptor Center. TRC was founded back in 1974 by Dr Gary Duke and Dr Patrick Redig, who was a veterinary student at the time, at the University of Minnesota, for a more detailed history check out this link. The mission of TRC is, "to ensure the health of raptors and the world that we share through teaching, research, and service." The teaching portion of the mission statement refers to the education and intern programs that TRC has through the University of Minnesota. As far as research TRC has pioneered many of the devices and procedures used around the world today for avian veterinary medicine. They have also worked on research into West Nile and other diseases that effect raptors, as well as authoring the Care and Management of Captive Raptors which has been adopted by the US fish and Wildlife Service as the authority on the care and management of captive raptors.
The part of TRC that I am involved primarily with is the service portion. As a member of the education crew I assist in the care of our education birds as well as help to educate the public about raptors through tours, programs and public events.
All of these first several pictures are public areas at TRC. They are designed to help us to educate and inspire people when they visit TRC for a program or just a visit.

We have around 30 educational birds that help us with our mission, they are the true ambassadors to The Raptor Center. These birds do programs on and off site. When they are at TRC they live in mews behind the building. During a tours we bring people back into this area to show them the birds and tell them a little bit about them. When I am not giving tours I am feeding the birds, cleaning their mews or portable cages, or helping out with what ever is needed.
Public programs are held on Saturday's and Sunday's and private programs can be arranged on site or off site at most other times. In the photo above Lois, one of our great horned owls, demonstrates how silently she can fly during a program.
We also have 4 public events during the year, a public release event in spring and fall, an open house in the spring, and a fund raising event in the summer. All of the bird pictures in the post, with the exception of Lois were taken at one of the public releases. Maxime is the largest of our bald eagles at around 10 pounds.
Whisper is a barn owl, something that we do not often see in the wild any more in Minnesota
This is the last picture I got of squeek. They decided to out him to sleep about a month back because he had severe arthritis and was in a lot of pain.

Boreus is a boreal owl which are more common in Canada, although we do get a small migration in Northern Minnesota during the winter.
Samantha is the largest of our great horned owls. She is great at using her size to intimidate new volunteers. Fortunately I have gotten past that state.
Cinnamon is a female American kestrel and one of my favorites. She is very well behaved and usually sits close in her mew so that people can really get a good look at her.
The boys on the other hand are often very hyper. We have 2 male kestrels, Barron above and his brother Jack, who are imprints. This means that there is nothing physically wrong with them but unfortunately they spent too much time with people when they were young and did not really learn how to be a kestrel.

Taiga is another of my favorites. She is a merlin falcon. Because of some trauma she can not grasp hard enough with her talons so we can not release her back into the wild. She is usually pretty calm except when you first give her food she sometimes lets out a cry. It is a good thing that she does not do this the entire time that she eats because she is an extremely slow eater.
Juneau is one of four peregrine falcons that we have as an education bird. The others are Artemis, Annie and Chup who is the only male. Juneau was the bird that I adopted in 2007.
Kettle is our newest edition, he is a broadwing hawk. I have been told that broadwing hawks do not always do well in captivity because they are kind of high strung but poor kettle was shot with a bee bee gun while he was still in the nest and he has a bee bee lodged in his brain. We can not remove the bee bee for fear of killing him but because of it he is mostly blind and probably has some brain damage.
Alley is one of our red-tail hawks. She is the coloration that we typically see here in pretty good numbers in Minnesota.
Casper is also a red-tail hawk but he is light phase Krider's hawk which is a subspecies of red-tail.

TRC is a great place to volunteer or visit. They are also a good charity to donate to if you have a little extra money sitting around. If you happen to be in the Twin Cities on a Wednesday afternoon with a little time on your hand please stop over, I will be happy to show you around. Since today is Monday though, TRC is closed Monday, please take some time and visit some of the other great sites featured in this inaugural edition of that's My World Tuesday.

30 comments:

Tom said...

Hi there Ecobirder..
Well what a posting this is for me... a big raptor fan... I will be back here to read through all the post later and of course follow the link... I just know I'm going to enjoy my visits here.

Anonymous said...

Oh wow! I couldn't have wished for a better start for MyWorld. This Post and it's pictures are fantastic!
Thank you for sharing!
Cheers, Klaus

P.S.: Please note for future MyWorld posts, to enter name and country in Mr. Linky, which seems appropriate for a "World" Meme!

EG CameraGirl said...

Very cool! If I'm ever in the Twin Cities area I'd be delighted to check out the Raptor Center.

I look forward t learning more about the Twin Cities area.

Louise said...

What a cool job you have. Thanks for sharing this part of your world! Amazing photos!

marcia@joyismygoal said...

wow i was right there w/ you that was a perfect tour thank you --i used to be a docent at our nature center here in FW TX I will do the same for you sometime soon.

Ivar Østtun said...

Thank you so much for sharing this. A perfect MWT post. Excellent pictures.

Rune Eide said...

That was some show! I have never seen so many of these birds ant one time, and the work you do must be important indeed.

PS Boreus was my favourite

Rose said...

OH, I loved this post....got to come back when i have more time. I LOVE raptors.

Anonymous said...

very informative post, much appreciated, and the photos are great. see you next week.

Pernille said...

This is just so beautiful that I dont belive my eys! Must be wonderful to walk around there and look at all those beautiful birds!

Reader Wil said...

Ecobirder, I enjoyed walking through your TRC building and seeing all those raptors. Thanks for showing us around.

Anonymous said...

What great photos, and indeed a great cause to support. I managed a quick visit there last time I was in the twin cities area, but would love the chance to come back and spend more time.

thanks for introducing us to such a great and important part of your world.

Anonymous said...

Thank you for the tour of the Raptor Center. What a great place - so interesting! Beautiful photos of all the birds!

Anonymous said...

Wow! What a great start for My World! Fantastic pictures and a wonderful commentary. It's easy to tell you enjoy your work. Thank you for sharing with us!

Leslie: said...

Wow! Thanks for the great virtual tour of the Raptor Center! Very fascinating place. This is gonna be fun! come visit...

Arija said...

Wonderful post, I dearly love owls and once had a Peregrine Falcon seek shelter for the night in our sunroom from which i had to release him in the mornig. To hold a gentle, trusting wild thing in my hands was awe inspiring. I understand your love for them.

Anonymous said...

What a fascinating post and such a great organization to volunteer for. Fabulous photographs and information.

Dar's Foto Faze said...

WOW what an amazing place. The pictures and story are wonderful. Thank you for sharing this.

Leedra said...

Beautiful, awesome photos, and so many of them. Great!

Oman said...

Thanks for the wonderful trip around your place. So very much different from my place but I do wanna share my place also to you. Great job.

Shelley said...

I so enjoyed this - I wished there was a place like this close to me in Mich! I loved all the info you provided on all of the birds - felt like I was getting to know them - and beautiful photos to boot!

The Birdlady said...

What a great way to spend Wed afternoons! The birds are so beautiful, having them available for public education can only help them. Thanks for sharing.

Stacey Olson said...

What a wonderful world you live in. I also work with Raptors. I am a falconer as well as a subpermittee under the local rehab center.. Over the past 9 yrs I have rehabed more bird for release than I have flown for falconry, have also trained quite a few different red tails and kestrels for placement in school programs.. I am VERY seriously considering getting my own school permit.. wonderful post.. thanks for sharing

Jane Hards Photography said...

Tis is without a doubt my favourite. I would absolutely love to do this. A huge bird hotographer this is really my kind of post. Wonderful images, and good for you for volunteering.

Unknown said...

What a fantastic place to be involved with, thank you for the interesting tour and great piccies

Beverly said...

This is a wonderful post…as usual, Ecobirder. But I have a confession to make. I took a piece of one of your photos.

I know it’s wrong, I know I should have asked first; but there is no telling how long until you would have found my request…if you found it at all.

I do hope you find this post of mine, with all it’s links and credits pointing right back to you, the compliment I mean it to be. If for any reason, even if only because you can, you request I remove your photo, I will. But it so beautifully illustrates something in a post I just made about Great Horned Owls (I linked to it under YOUR photo on my page)…I hope you let me keep it!

I’m a fairly new blogger…and don’t really know what is kosher in the blog-world. Still, I do not approve of just ‘taking’ other people’s stuff. So…I made sure everyone knows it’s your photograph and I linked to your site about a dozen times. I do hope you don’t mind…and let me keep the beautiful piece I copied from your site.

Thanks,
Beverly

D Herrod said...

Very cool posting.

Anonymous said...

These are wonderful photos you share! what a fun place to visit.

troutbirder said...

Enjoyed all the raptor pictures. I really come to appreciate these beautiful creatures, especially after meeting "Angel" in Wabasha at the National Eagle Center.

Maria said...

That was very interesting, and the raptor pictures are beautiful! Thank you for sharing!
BTW, we have kestrels living in the middle of the city on a tall church tower!