Free flight

You know it's a good day when you take over 600 photos.  Yep, my camera nearly burst into flames at several points during the day.  We spent the entire day at the Sonoran Desert Museum, enjoying birds, mammals, reptiles and even (when the sun finally peeped out) a few butterflies.  For me, one of the huge highlights were the two raptor free-flight shows we saw.

Imagine seeing majestic birds like this Ferruginous Hawk, flying out over the dessert, careening through the sky, and then whooshing so close over your head that your hair moved in the breeze.  In total, we saw six species, including five life-firsts for me: this Hawk, five Harris's hawks, a barn owl, a Mexican goshawk (Gray hawk) and two Chihuahuan Ravens.  Plus a Great Horned Owl and Peregrine Falcon.  

Most of you know that I normally avoid posting captive birds but I felt this was worth making an exception for - these birds were just spectacular.  By the way, no edits to this shot - image is full-frame and no crop, that's how close I was. Once I'm home again, I will post some other shots on Flickr, but for now, I'll put the rest of the birds from the free flight in Extra.  Enjoy!

Tomorrow, in spite of a rather dismal weather forecast, we are meeting Laurie54 in the morning at Madeira Canyon, one of the biggest birding hot spots in this area.  Looking forward to another fun day.  

Thanks for coming along on my adventure.

Xo
Debbi

PS:  Album posted HERE on Flickr