Fall Release

 

 This past Saturday was The Raptor Center's annual Fall Raptor Release. This event has been held at the beautiful Carpenter Nature Center, over looking the scenic St Croix River, for the past 5 years. Even with the cold and cloudy weather that we had we still had a good crowd. The highlight of the event is when we release rehabbed birds back into the wild. This year we released 6 birds. Two of the released birds were bald eagles. We only birds in the appropriate habitat and since the Carpenter Nature Center is right on the St Croix near to when it joins the Mississippi it is great habitat for eagles.  

My main job at the release was to take pictures. This was not so easy this year since the cloudy skies made the lighting difficult to work with. Fortunately we did have a bit of clearing as the day went which did give us a little light to work with. My other duty during the event was to help out at our raptor rings. We bring many of our education birds out to the release so that during the day people get get a good close look at a variety of different raptors. The ed raptors are divided into rings. This year we had 3 rings, one with bald eagles and our turkey vulture and 2 others that have a mix of hawks, falcons and owls. So while I was getting some nice close ups of our ed birds, like the one above of Samantha the great horned owl, I also answered questions about the raptors. It turned out to be another great event.

Otus the Eastern Screech-Owl

 This is Otus, one of the two eastern screech-owls that we have in the education department at The Raptor Center. She spent the day today out at the Carpenter Nature Center for our fall release. The weather was mixed with clouds and cold temps for part of the day and sun and mild temps for the rest. Otus gets her name from the genus that the eastern screech owl used to belong to Otus. Recently though the numerous species of screech owls were given their own genus Megascops. You can still find the old scientific name Otus asio instead of Megascops asio in many older field guides.

Raptor Release

The Raptor Center at the University of Minnesota takes in between 600 to 800 injured raptors every year. The clinic is world renown and they work hard to heal and rehabilitate every bird that is admitted. The highlight of being involved with The Raptor Center is when we get to release a recovered bird back into the wild. Birds are released all the time but twice a year we invite the public to come and join with us and celebrate as we have a big public release. This photo was taken at the fall 2010 release at the Carpenter Nature Center. It is also the featured photo on the 2012 Raptor Center calendar. If you would like to help out the great work that The Raptor Center does you can purchase a fund raising calendar by going to their online store.

Fall Raptor Release

Fall is one of my favorite times of the year to go out and take nature pics. I love it when the weather gets a bit cooler, the landscapes fill with the color of leaves turning, birds stop by on their way south and all of the animals start preparing for winter.

There are also a lot of events going on through out the fall, this weekend it was The Raptor Center's big fall raptor release. The release was held at Carpenter Nature Center, where I also volunteer from time to time, so I went over Friday after work to help with the set up.

Unfortunately it rained most of the day Friday which really set us back on getting things set up. Since we could not do some of the set up, due to the rain, I spent most of my time printing up posters and signs. We were all a bit worried since the weather forecast had Saturday listed as pretty much the same as Friday. I was especially worried because we were using my sound system which I definitely did not want sitting outside in the rain.
As it turned out there was nothing to worry about. Saturday started out a bit foggy but by the time the release started the weather was almost perfect. After putting up directional signs and then setting up the sound system I took my place in the hawk and falcon ring. The education hawks and falcons that we had at the event were two American kestrels, Cinnamon and Jack, two peregrine falcons, Juneau and Artemis, a merlin falcon, Taiga, two red-tailed hawks, Alula and Casper, and a broad-winged hawk, Kettle. Cinnamon, Juneau, Casper and Taiga are picture above.

In the afternoon I did do a short stint over at the owl ring, they were a bit short handed so I went over to help out. The owls that we brought to the event included two great horned owls, Samantha and Lois, a barred owl, Odie, and two eastern screech owls. One of the screech owls was Otus the other one, pictured above with Gail the Education Director, is a new education bird and it does not yet have a name. The Raptor Center is looking for help in naming this cute little guy so during the event we were taking suggestions from people attending the release. If you have a suggestion for a good name for him you can submit it at The Raptor Center's website.

The highlight of the event were the releases. We had two releases on Saturday with three birds released each time. At the 11:30 release we released two broadwinged hawks and a red-tail. In the afternoon we release a red-shouldered hawk, a broad-winged hawk and a red-tailed hawk.

The people who had the great privilege of releasing a bird were chosen by The Raptor Center, Carpenter Nature Center, or 3M, who sponsored the event. They were chosen in recognition of their involvement with supporting great causes like The Raptor Center and Carpenter Nature Center.

It was a great day and a terrific event. I had a lot of fun talking to people about raptors and watching six birds fly free into the open blue skies, birds that would have died had it not been for a lot of people who cared, all of the staff and volunteers at The Raptor Center and Carpenter Nature Center plus all of the wonderful people who support these great causes.

My World: Hyland Park Raptor Release

I spent most of my day on Saturday at the Hyland Lake Park Reserve.

As one of the larger parks in the Three Rivers Park District Hyland has a lot to offer. At the visitors center you can rent skates during the winter or a canoe during the summer.

They also have a state of the art play area, called Chutes and Ladders, for the kids.

The reason that I was there for though was this years Spring Raptor Release for The Raptor Center.

I arrived at the park before anyone else from The Raptor Center so I decided to take a quick look around. Visitors were already gathering for the event like a couple of pair of wood ducks that I found high in the trees. I always wonder how they can perch this way with their flat webbed feet. Since the event was a raptor release a wild broad-winged hawk showed up and perched in a tree close to where the birds were do to be released.

The ducks and red-tail did not hang out to long because the crew from The Raptor Center arrived along with our gang of education birds. Although there was nothing to be afraid of from Casper the friendly red-tail, with his bad wing he can not really fly.

Kettle our broad-winged hawk was there. He was shot with a bee bee gun when he was in the nest and still has a bee bee in his head. Unfortunately it is lodged to close to his brain for us to be able to remove.

We brought Jack, one of our imprinted male American kestrels, to the event but he was a bit unruly. The male kestrels tend to get a bit territorial around this time of the year, which makes them a bit of a challenge, so we gave him a break and brought out Cinnamon, our female kestrel. She is always a star.

I was stationed in the hawk and eagle ring so I was responsible for answering questions about these birds as well as protecting them from rampaging children who wanted to pet the birds. I don't think that Taiga our female merlin falcon would have appreciated that.

I did have the opportunity to handle at the event, under the supervision of a staff member, but Artemis, the bird who I have worked with the most, was busy with other new handlers. She is such a great bird that she is often used as the first bird that a new handler begins with.

We also did have a couple of our eagles and Nero our turkey vulture in a ring and several owls in a ring. We even brought out Otus, who is an eastern screech owl. The staff has been working hard with Otus especially since Squeak passed. Squeak, who was a grey phase eastern screech owl shared a mew with Otus.

The day turned out to be almost perfect. The weather was warm and sunny and a big crowd turned out to see us release some raptors back into the wild. We released three birds that day a coopers hawk and two red-tails including this dark morph red-tail which is rare for Minnesota.

Fall Raptor Release

As part of their mission to rescue and rehabilitate injured raptors The Raptor Center frequently has the opportunity to release birds back into the wild. Typically these are small events with the lucky person who gets to release the bird ans a TRC staff member or volunteer being the only people present. However twice a year TRC holds public raptor releases as a part of their service mission.
The fall release was held back in September, 9-27th, at the Carpenter Nature Center. I showed up at CNC the day before the event to help set up things like parking, tents, signs and the stage.
The purpose of these public releases is to help educate the public about raptors. To make people aware of the raptors that live around us and the challenges they face every day. Programs on the stage help demonstrate some of these challenges.
In this program Adam uses a young volunteer and his father to demonstrate how much weight it takes to break a normal chicken egg. You can tell by the look on dad's face that by adding many rocks on with the boy, around 85 to 90 lbs, the egg finally broke. This illustrates how devastating DDT was on many bird species since eggs that normally can hold over 80lbs where breaking under the weight of the birds, very large eagles only weigh around 14 pounds.
There were several other programs on the stage, I missed the Carpenter program on reptiles because I was busy answering questions about hawks and falcons, as well as music, booths, and the TRC education birds.
The highlight of the day is always the releases, after all that is the reason why most people come. The birds are kept in darkness away from the crowd until it is time to set them free.

The people who are lucky enough to get to release a bird are usually picked by TRC, the host site, in this case Carpenter Nature Center, or the sponsor. The sponsor for the fall event was 3M.
The number of birds that are released varies each year depending on how many birds are ready. This year there were quite of few red-tail hawks. This one decided to have a conversation with Gail, TRC education Program Manager.
Many of these people are long time supporters of TRC.
Others are long time supporters on the Carpenter Nature center.
This picture that I took was published in the local Hudson, WI newspaper. The paper, which covers an area close to CNC, sent a person to cover the event but they did not get a good shot of the release. Photographing releases is not easy and it helps if you have been to as many as I have. Jen, CNC Development Director, saw my pics and put me in touch with staff and the paper.

Unfortunately people under 18 are not allowed to release birds due to safety concerns. In cases where children are chosen to do a release an adult representative does the actual release. In this case the woman pictured represented three girls involved in a local organization.
Sometimes people get to release a raptor just by chance. In this case this woman's name was drawn from people who signed up for the Friends of The Raptor Center at the event.
The Friends of TRC is a new program for people who wish to contribute gifts to help benefit TRC.
There turned out to be one extra bird that was ready for release at the last minute. TRC chose to allow the instructor of a group that was filming a documentary about TRC for a class project to release the last bird.
The Raptor Release is a lot of fun. I really enjoy talking with people about raptors and so I spent all day at the hawk and falcon ring, when I was not taking pictures of the release. I was pleasantly surprised when Lynn, who blogs at Hasty Brook showed up and said hi.

Raptor Release

Today I will be spending the day at the Carpenter Nature Center working the Fall Raptor Release for The Raptor Center.
Our educational birds out at the nature center, so that people can get a real close look at a live raptor, plus there will be a stage which will have music and programs from The Raptor Center as well as Carpenter Nature Center
There will be two different bird releases scheduled at 11:30 and at 1:00. These are birds that have been patched up down in the clinic and then rehabilitated and are now being released back into the wild.
These are pictures from the spring release. As you can probably tell from the expressions on the peoples faces the release is a wonderful experience and something, if you are in the Twin Cities area, I would definitely recommend.

I will be answering questions about hawks and falcons, like Cinnamon who is pictured above, in the morning from 10:00 to 12:30.
In the afternoon I will be answering questions about Owls, like Samantha here, from 12:30 to 3:00. You can find more information on the event here and directions to Carpenter Nature Center here.