Raptor Center in Oregon

[NEIndiana]

As some know, I'm out in Oregon on vacation and visiting with my mom. While being here, I've been fortunate enough to get to the coast and get some awesome pics of the waves, seals, and birds. Today, we went to a Raptor center and here are just a couple of majestic birds that I fell in love with. Hope you enjoy them as much as I enjoyed seeing them.

Each one of these gorgeous birds came to the center injured and instead of letting them die in the wild, this center takes them in and works with them and if there is a chance of recovery, they will return them to the wild.

[Frozen_Signal]

those are some great pics elaine....and im glad theres a place for majestic creatures like those....

also hope you have a great trip and be careful coming home!

tc

[herasday]

Thanks for the pics, elaine.

I love the raptors, even though sometimes they can spell danger to the other birds we like to watch at our feeders.


My friend had a "Northern Harrier" summer in her back yard this year. A family of Harriers came to bathe every day on the solar cover of her pool, sometimes more than once. They hung around on her deck and in the yard enough that she had a lot fewer birds at her feeders, but she loved to watch them anyway. She also had a lot fewer rodents which she was glad of.

Harriers are quite distinctive in flight and up close.

Their eyes are most distinctive, being set forward on their faces, more like an owl's than to the sides of the head like other hawks and eagles, too. She got some good pics up very close but doesn't have them online. Here's a pic of the eyes of the Northern Harrier
nov21YB2.jpg photo - Chris P. photos at pbase.com

[Bird Lover]

Wonderful photos Elaine! They sure are beautiful birds. I wuold have enjoyed visiting a place like that too.

[NEIndiana]

There were some harriers in the compound and they are gorgeous. My all time favorite is the bald eagle though. After 11 years of watching them up in Alaska and seeing them only in the wilds and not in the zoos, I've grown attached to them. Such a huge wingspread and yet they can zip down and take a Hershey Crunch bar out of a little boy's hand and never touch him...but he did lose the entire candy bar! Too many stories about eagles to share here, but needless to say, I must have taken at least 200 pics of them while there.
As for my trip home...keep your fingers crossed that hurricane Ike holds up with the rains in Indiana until the day after I get home. Gustav cancelled 3 of my flights and had me going through San Francisco and arriving a day late. I just wanna go home. LOL

[Dog Mom]

I have seen more raptors up here in Duluth than I had even seen in pictures before I came here. We have a raptor conservation area behind my home and a raptor center in the Twin Cities at the university there. They are magnificent birds to see. I love to watch them in flight, especially the eagles!