Raptor Free Flight at Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum
/We saw the morning and afternoon Raptor Free Flights at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum when we were there in January. The museum brings out birds that are trained to swoop for bait providing great views of the birds in flight and out in the open area of the desert museum’s land. The views of the birds during the free flight would be very time-consuming to duplicate in the wild and lots of people – including me – were taking pictures.
We saw two different kinds of owls: A Barn Owl
and a Great Horned Owl. I couldn’t resist taking several perspectives of this bird. The wings are more complex structures.
The Prairie Falcon was probably my favorite...swift and beutiful.
There was a ferruginous hawk at the end of the morning program - quite a size contrast to the praire falcon!
All of these are solitary hunters. The Harris’s Hawks, the last birds in the afternoon Free Flight, live and hunt as a group so their free flight is as a group. Their acrobatic interactions were too fast for me to photograph!
