I’m going to dispense with all pretense of food for this post. This is a very non-vegan post in that it’s all about very non-vegan beings: birds of prey, or raptors. I love them! I’m just fascinated by raptors. So when I somehow stumbled over the Capitol Photography Center website while looking for something completely non-related and found an upcoming “raptor photo safari”, I was all over it. This happened this past Saturday and let me tell you, it ended up being such a fabulous day. It was one of those days where you don’t win the lottery or anything obviously fantastic like that, but at the end of the day you look back and realize, “I did everything I love today!”.

I think there are a couple different schools of thought when it comes to wildlife photography: one feels that it’s easier and safer to photograph captive animals, and also more interesting in that you have access to many animals you’d never see otherwise, while the other feels that there’s no challenge in captive animal photography. I am more a member of the latter school, although most of that is because I don’t believe animals should be in captivity in the first place. I don’t go to zoos, which rules out nearly all of my chances of seeing captive animals…I’m the rare specimen for whom it’s easier to find wild animals than it is captive animals! Well, other than captive raccoons, but all of our raccoons eventually become wild. I was interested in this particular photo safari, however, because it was held at a nature center where they presented several different raptors for us to photograph in a natural setting, which would allow me to get much closer to them than is generally possible. All of the animals are “education animals”, which are injured animals that have been rehabbed but are non-releasable for various reasons. I don’t have a problem with education animals being held in captivity. It’s either that or euthanasia for them and all the ones I have met have been well loved and cared for. I go to a lot of trainings and the like where I see education animals, but mostly they are being held by handlers and we are indoors – doesn’t make for fabulous pictures. So this was a really cool opportunity. They do it a few times a year (the next one will be on my birthday – October 19!); if you live in the DC/Baltimore area and that sounds interesting to you, I recommend it.

How about some pictures, you say? Well, of course. The first bird to come out was a barred owl. I think they said this was a male, because he was pretty small and I know that like many raptors, male owls are smaller than female owls.

Next up was one of my favorite owls, the Great Horned. I got a picture of the handler bringing him out because I WANT THAT TO BE MY JOB. Actually, I’ve been giving serious consideration to volunteering with a raptor group here, in which case, it MIGHT one day be my job! (Where by “job” I mean another thing I do that involves getting pooped on with no pay.)

You can see the jesses in this picture – the leather straps that tether the bird in place. He had enough mobility to hop around, but not enough to fly away.

This is why I love Great Horned owls – their EYES! Torticia makes this exact face at me all the time; I’ve always told her she looks like an owl when she does it.

Next was a red-shouldered hawk. This one is missing an eye. We also saw a red-tailed hawk, which is similar but larger, but I don’t seem to have uploaded a picture of that one.

I must say, Mark is more perceptive than I sometimes give him credit for. He was looking at my pictures later and when he saw the next one, he said, “this eagle doesn’t look…all there.” I don’t know how he can tell from the picture, but this bald eagle is brain damaged.

Brain damage or not, he was majestic. Eagles are just special, man. Another thing about Mark is he and I think alike, which is scary. He saw the next one and said, “he’s strutting!”, without knowing I had named this file, simply, “strutting”.

I want to hold an eagle.

I’d never seen a golden eagle in person. This one had been shot on the Maryland Eastern Shore. WHO SHOOTS AN EAGLE??? What is WRONG with people? Every time I think of whoever it was who shot this animal, all I can do is comfort myself by thinking of whoever it was who found the injured animal and took it to safety, and the person who meticulously removed all of the buckshot from its wing and performed surgery on it, and the people who care for it every day. That’s one bad person and many good people. The world is a good place, right?

The instructor told us he had requested the Eastern screech owl for the “cute” factor. He’s so tiny!! Smaller than my cats!

The handler didn’t say the peregrine falcon was her favorite animal, but she was clearly very attached to and proud of him. He’s 15 years old and has been all over the country, including a stint at Dollywood teaching other rehabbed peregrines how to be peregrines. I didn’t know that was even a thing that Dollywood did.

That was all of the animals. We had about 15 minutes with each one. The instructor was there to give tips and help with your camera or photography if you needed it. I would definitely do it again, although I admit that although I got some great shots, I didn’t quite feel the same indescribable joy that I do when I get a picture of something new when I’m out in nature. So later in the day I decided it was far too nice out to do my daily walk on the treadmill and instead headed to Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge, my default park. I was only going with the intent to walk for exercise, so although I grabbed my small mirrorless camera just in case, I wasn’t expecting to take many pictures. I wasn’t finished going through and editing the more than 1,200 pictures (!!!) I’d taken on the photo safari! Well, five minutes into my walk, what should walk across my path but a wild turkey! This was amazing because I’ve seen them there before but I’ve never been able to get a picture because they are very shy and very fast. Usually you just hear them rustling about and never actually see them. So getting a picture of one has been a goal of mine. When you least expect things…

No, it’s not nearly as good a picture as any of the ones above, but it was in a way more fulfilling. I continued walking and eventually came upon a tree full of vultures. And found my camera battery was dead! As was the spare! I was so mad! So I practically ran 1/2 mile back to my car to get my “big” camera, which is a LOT better at telephoto shots anyway, then trotted back to the vulture tree, and they were all still patiently waiting for me. (Okay, they were probably patiently waiting for dinner and not the paparazzi.)

Two turkey and one black vulture:

One turkey and one black vulture:

Black vulture being a vulture:

Vulture flying into the setting sun:

Driving home from the refuge, I realized what a great day it had been, other than the waking up at 5 a.m. part. I was presented with a bunch of raptors to photograph as I pleased; the weather could only be described as “perfection”; because the photo safari was in Maryland, I got to spend hours driving my beloved convertible on a perfect spring day; I spent a couple of hours relaxing and editing pictures in my favorite chair; I went to my favorite park at sunset and got a picture of an animal I’ve been trying to photograph for a long time, and I got great shots of lots of vultures. AND I was exhausted when I got home – the best kind of exhausted – and Mark surprised me by making dinner. That, my friends, is my idea of a GREAT day! And guess what – my next post WILL have a recipe.

I have several ideas for posts, but time…is…getting…away…from…me. Aaaaaand we’re leaving for a few days in Puerto Rico early Thursday morning. So although I didn’t have time to put together a food post, I thought I would make a quick post tonight celebrating my favorite month, October, before it’s gone.

I’d been looking for new places to take pictures in Northern Virginia and I read about Meadowlark Gardens in nearby Vienna, and coincidentally they were having one of their biannual “photographer field days”, where they stay open before sunrise to after sunset, the very next weekend! I lucked out with that timing because the hour before and after sunrise and sunset is coveted by photographers as the “golden hour” and this park isn’t usually open until 10 a.m., so I forced my night owl self to get up at 5:30 a.m. on Saturday and hauled myself over there. Not only is 5:30 more a bedtime for me than a wake-up time, but we experienced our first frost of the season overnight and I HATE cold, so this was quite a feat. Sooooo worth it! If you live in the area, Meadowlark Gardens is beautiful, and being there at sunrise was damn near magical. Moreover, I was even happy about the frost, if you can believe it, because the cool color of the grass was an amazing contrast to the warm colors of the fall foliage. I’m so shy that even being in the same park with other photographers is slightly difficult for me, but I quickly got over feeling self-conscious and just felt happy. Not that there was any reason for self-consciousness in the first place because there were maybe 20 other people, all photographers, there and they all said a friendly “hi” in passing but kept to themselves.

I’ll let some of the pictures do the talking from here on out. These are all better bigger so I’ve linked them to at high-res.

I’ll be honest; I don’t often see the sun rise, but every time I do I resolve to do it more often.

Look at that frost. Can the hot, hot, hot summer really be over? It was 39 degrees when I got to the park.

It was so cold there was a ton of mist off the water; it didn’t burn off until around 10 a.m. when I left.

The three pictures above are almost “zooming in”. Really I, not the camera, was doing the zooming, but if you look carefully in the two above this one of the bridge, you can see the same bridge.

Can you tell that Mrs Duck is looking at me inquisitively in this one?

This is essentially the same picture as above, but taken with the “normal” camera and not my infrared one.

The next two pictures are from the Korean Bell Garden area of the park – it’s the only one of its kind in the Western Hemisphere. I had to restrain myself from ringing – or rather striking – the bell. I know that goes counter to my statement above that I was self-conscious even being in the park, so why in the world would I possibly consider doing something I’m not only sure is verboten, but which would have been extremely loud and ruined the sweet, sweet serenity of the morning for everyone else around me and caused a lot of very unhappy attention to be heaped on me? What can I say, I’m a very curious person. Anyway, I controlled myself. I do want to hear it, though.

I feel compelled to share a link to an article I enjoyed reading today: Showing Vultures A Little Love. I think vultures are neat, but I don’t think many people do. I’m always surprised when people react negatively when I tell them I rehab raccoons (they are so adorable I can’t figure out how anyone could dislike them), but vultures are even more reviled because they are “ugly” and – this is the part I really don’t get – eat dead animals. I LIKE vultures for eating dead animals. As far as I’m concerned, they are doing me a service; the fewer dead animals lying around to rot on the ground the better. Eat up, vultures!

Taken earlier this year in Occoquan, VA

I got to meet our local vulture rehabber a while ago, which was awesome. Weirdly, it was the day of the earthquake. I was on the schedule to transport wildlife that day, but then the day got really, really strange, what with the earthquake and everything, but I couldn’t see any reason not to deliver the birds I had been asked to transport before the earthquake, so I picked them up from the animal hospital and drove out to Manassas and had a long talk with the rehabber, Mattie, who takes just about any animal, particularly “unloved” species, but specializes in vultures. She was really cool and since then I’ve loved vultures even more. There are a couple of articles you can read about her if you are interested.

Taken a few years ago in Harper’s Ferry, WV

Turkey vulture, taken earlier this year

Since I’m babbling about vultures anyway, here are some other wildlife pictures I’ve taken recently. They are all from Occoquan National Wildlife Reserve.

Anyone know what this one is? I can’t find it in my bird book, probably because I’m a noob.

With that, I’m going to eat dinner… a very happy Fourth of July to my fellow Americans!