Another booth

Last weekend I had the opportunity to help out at another outreach booth for Hawks Aloft, the non profit I worked for last Spring and Summer.  This booth was in Santa Fe, at the Native American art museum, which is about an hour North of Albuquerque.  No rooming with raptors required.  Kim and I set out at about 8:30.  While I was waiting for her to show up at the Hawks Aloft office, I got to enjoy the first morning of balloon fiesta.  The sky was filled with balloons, and I grabbed my binoculars out of the car so I could get a better look at them.  I got to see some of my favorites: Nellie B the pink elephant, the witch on her broom, the carousel, the giant Darth Vader head (which I never got to see fully inflated last year) and the girl and boy bee, who hold hands.  (It's two separate balloons, which are owned by different people, but they always go up next to each other, and the pilots maneuver them so they look as though they are holding hands.

So anyway, we made it to Santa Fe, and set up our booth.  We had 4 birds, three small to medium birds, and one large female red tailed hawk.  We set the smaller birds up perched on our table, and brought the large hawk out periodically, since she is more high strung and doesn't like wind (which we were experiencing - it was a cool, gusty day).  Here's our booth - don't ask me what I was laughing at, because I have no idea.

At our last booth, our American Kestrel refused to cooperate with my efforts to photograph him. He was in constant motion.  Last weekend, he was much more cooperative, and posed nicely for me, showing off how pretty he is.  American Kestrels are the smallest of the North American falcons.  One of the unusual things about them is that the males are colored differently from the females.  Most of our raptors can't be sexed by their plumage, although there are a couple who can.  The male kestrel has slate blue on his wings, and the female has black bands all down her tail, but the male has a gorgeous rufous tail with a black band near the tip.  The kestrel is always very popular at booths.

We also had another small falcon with us, a female merlin.  I had worked with this bird before, but I don't think I truly appreciated how pretty she is until working this booth.  She isn't flashy like the kestrel, but she is attractive just the same.  She kept stretching and looking as if she was about to fly.  Unfortunately, she is missing a good portion of one wing - it was so badly broken that it had to be amputated.  All of these birds have injuries that make them unable to survive in the wild.

This is a Mississippi Kite.  I have seen these birds in the wild.  The first time I saw one, it almost looked like a gull, but then I noticed the hooked bill, and when it landed, I saw that it had red eyes.  Our kite has ruffly feathers on his head, for some unknown reason, so he looks a bit as though he has a perm.  I didn't get a photo of this, but he kept holding his dark grey wings out and pumping them slowly, and with his red eye, he reminded me of a vampire, or perhaps a vampire bat.  But he's a very mellow, gentle bird.

And finally, the red tailed hawk.  She is blind in one eye and has a wing injury.  Someone shot her while she was flying - I can't imagine how anyone could do that but people do all sorts of things. She is a very impressive bird.  In the second picture, you can see her red tail.

In addition to our raptors, there were reptiles on display, and also this very cool wolf.  We'll be doing a booth at the wolf sanctuary on the 25th.

There were also Native American dancers who performed.  The first dance was an eagle dance, which I thought was very apropos.  There was also a buffalo dance, but I didn't get any photos of that one.

It was a long day, but enjoyable.  Yes, you answer the same questions over and over, but it's great to see people appreciating these beautiful birds.  In case you are wondering why we didn't bring any owls, owls are considered to be bad omens by some Native American tribes - not appropriate birds to bring to a Native American museum.