Festival of Hawks

Holiday Beach is a well known hawk migration observatory. There were cars from all over North America in the parking lot. Austyn has been so interested in Birds of Prey lately that we just had to go and check out this festival. It was well worth it. They learned about many other animals as well. The first table had a scavenger hunt page that you could pick up and they showed how they catch and tag monarch butterflies. They showed us a beautiful dragonfly, skeletons, antlers (very heavy), a turtle shell. hawk wings, hawk legs, and some stuffed birds. Zoe is checking out a frog skeleton.

 Here Austyn is observing, comparing, and discussing different wings. She asked him many questions and he know the answers to many. Unschoolinig is AWSOME! 

Here he is telling Zoe all about the things he sees on the table. After this Zoe got her face painted and Austyn and I got a head start with the Zoo animals.

A local man keeps Zoo animals to educate kids at parties and special gatherings. Here is the wallaby in his cage. 

The wallaby eventually gets to come out and get attention.

The kids got a close up look at many animals from all over the world

While learning about the animals a tortoise wandered around the room to see what everyone was doing.

It was like a fashion show as they tried on life snake bracelets. 

They got to try on a live boa scarf!

It was a very hands on experience. Every animal was observed close up and touched. These are bunnies.

We took a walk to see the rescued birds. Here we saw four rescued birds and donated money to help pay for their care. 

The owl was very comfortable around all of the people but was on the look out for dogs. Dogs are not a favourite for owls.

The turkey vulture with only one wing was Austyn's favourite. He loves turkey vultures. The woman who cares for him said that he is an amazing and very intelligent bird. He can even manipulate humans into doing what he wants.

We climbed the observation tower and looked across the swamp with our binoculars. There were eagles nesting in the distance. 

 While there people were catching, banding and releasing birds. This is a male sharp shined hawk. The females are a bit larger and instead of being kept in tomato juice cans are kept in a pringles tube. Pigeons and other things are used as bate so that they can be caught. Once caught they are kept in these containers with holes on the end. The containers keep them safe so that they are easy to handle without harming their wings. Also they are calmer. They band the one leg and then release the birds. 

While releasing the bird the people who work there educate the public about these magnificent birds. We already spent our money and were bummed that we couldn't adopt a bird. With adoption we give our email address and if the bird is caught again or found dead they send all of the information to us automatically and we get to track our bird. Maybe we'll make our way to this festival again and next time we'll be sure to have cash to adopt a hawk.

Austyn learned about microscopic pond life while Zoe got a head start with the outdoor crafts. 

It was a great day and amazing that Austyn knew so much about birds of prey. Following his interests is really helping in his learning process. He picked out a turkey future stuffed animal and Zoe chose a skunk. The proceeds went to Canadian Parks.