I was really excited about this day! I had been introduced to our local raptor center last year when my day job participated in United Way's Day of Caring. We had decided to volunteer at Cascade Raptor Center, and 11 of us worked there for a couple hours one morning last September.

The raptor center has quite a few permanent residents... birds who have been hurt and have healed, but can't return to the wild because they would not survive. It seemed like the biggest issues were either vision problems, or wing problems where they couldn't fly well enough to hunt or make their migration.

The residents were in big cages outside, and guests can wander through and see everyone, and read their story. It was just amazing to be so close to these very special birds.

When we were there, last year, we had been invited to see the "handler's talk"... One bird comes out and his or her handler talks about raptors and what happens at the center. Unfortunately, no one else was interested, since we were on company time, they wanted to get back to work. humph.

And also unfortunately, the handler's talks only happen at noon during the week. Not on the weekends. So this was a perfect family activity when my parents and brother visited!

We got to meet Taka, a dark morph Swainson's hawk...

(more tomorrow)

Static8 > Journal > 17 nov 2014

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