Birds of Prey soars at Deer Meadow, Tzouanakis schools

Thursday, January 26, 2017
As teachers and students look on with excitement, wonder and a touch of fear, Buzz the vulture (top) lands on the arm of Katelyn Dotson of the American Eagle Foundation Wednesday afternoon at Deer Meadow Primary School. Brought to local schools by Duke Energy, the Birds of Prey program also made a Wednesday stop at Tzouanakis Intermediate School. For more photos from the program, click here.
Banner Graphic/JARED JERNAGAN

Did you know that owls aren’t actually wise? That throwing up can be a defense mechanism for vultures? That in captivity a golden eagle can live to be 50 years old?

Students at Deer Meadow Primary and Tzouanakis Intermediate schools heard these facts and more during the Birds of Prey program presented by the American Eagle Foundation.

Visiting the two schools for separate convocations on Wednesday, the program was in town thanks to Duke Energy, which used a $25,000 grant from the Duke Energy Foundation to bring the program to nine west central Indiana schools this week.

The kids got to see a dozen birds of 10 different species while learning about each one from American Eagle Foundation representatives Karen Wilbur and Katelyn Dotson. They explained that many such birds are endangered or protected, many of them killed by humans for no good reason.

“You can’t eat them. There’s no meat on their bones,” Wilbur told the students. “So it’s not hunters that shoot them. It’s people who don’t know their importance to our environment.”

Much of that importance comes from the birds’ role in eating pests or carrion.

Displaying Jupiter the barn owl for the kids, Dotson explained that an owl can hear a mouse’s heartbeat from 60 feet away and also flies silently so it can swoop in on the unsuspecting rodent.

Such behavior is useful to humans, as the property-destroying, diseasing-carrying pests would otherwise multiply quickly.

Likewise, mice are among the main diet of red-tailed hawks such as Jesse, who was also on display Wednesday. Wilbur told the children that red-tailed hawks are often shot by farmers as a threat to chickens. She explained that while the species will sometimes eat chickens, rodents remain their main prey.

Although he is dad to several South Putnam Eagles, Deer Meadow Primary School Principal Mike McHugh finds himself as “vulture bait” on Wednesday afternoon with the American Eagle Foundation Birds of Prey program in town. Having already taken flight for the delighted students, Buzz the black vulture landed on the arm of the principal. For more photos from the program, click here.
Banner Graphic/JARED JERNAGAN

“These birds are very important to protect,” Wilbur said.

Some of the most entertaining parts of the program came courtesy of a bird generally considered the dirtiest and least desirable of the raptors — the vulture.

Buzz the black vulture wowed the kids by taking flight over the crowd, soaring between handlers Dotson and Wilbur.

While the vulture’s habit of scavenging the carcasses of dead animals may be distasteful to people, the kids learned that vultures actually bathe frequently and help prevent the spread of disease.

Without such scavengers, carrion would attract many more flies than it already does, which would then multiply and actually spread disease.

Vultures display some qualities unique among birds of prey, the students learned. Buzz has a bald head (unlike a “bald” eagle, whose head is covered in white feathers) because he often sticks his head into carcasses.

Additionally, vultures’ hunting habits do not require the strength of grip that other birds of prey have, which leave them without one important defense technique in the wild.

Instead, one defense mechanism is to projectile vomit on an attacker. Principal Mike McHugh was informed of this fact and handed safety glasses as he prepared for Buzz to perch on his arm.

Fortunately, Buzz was not frightened and the glasses were not necessary on Wednesday.

Students viewed and learned about a number of other species, including American kestrel falcons (which weigh no more than 5 ounces fully grown), hybrid gyr-saker falcon, crested coracora falcon, barred owl and Harris’s hawk.

During the owl presenation, Corbin Grable, son of Brad and Heather Grable of Greencastle, held a pair of softballs to his face to show what he would look like with eyes that are proportionally the size of an owls.

Although he is a pre-kindergarten student at New Pathways, Corbin was along with his dad, a C&M supervisor at Duke who introduced the program.

Of course, with the American Eagle Foundation in town the real attractions of the day were the two eagles, and they did not disappoint.

Students first met Tecumseh, a 37-year-old golden eagle. A long-lived species even in the wild, golden eagles can live up to 50 years in captivity.

The featured attraction of the Birds of Prey program, Mr. Lincoln the bald eagle shows off his majestic form as handler Karen Wilbur keeps ahold of him Wednesday at Deer Meadow. For more photos from the program, click here.
Banner Graphic/JARED JERNAGAN

The grand finale was a visit from Mr. Lincoln the bald eagle. While the American Eagle Foundation does many Birds of Prey shows with ambassador birds like Mr. Lincoln, one of its main goals remains the re-population of such birds into the wild.

To this end, the foundation takes on sick or injured bald eagles, returns them to health and tries to reintroduce them into the wild. Birds that cannot make it in the wild are kept at the foundation headquarters in Pigeon Forge, Tenn., and used for breeding.

The offspring of these eagles are then released into the wild. Since 1992, the foundation has released more than 150 bald eagles into the wild and Mr. Lincoln was the only one who ever came back.

Upon his release in 1998, he traveled 550 miles. Along the way, he was seen stealing fried chicken from an Indiana boat dock and later lived off bacon fed to him by a Michigan family.

He never learned to hunt, however, only scavenge. Becoming very hungry and weak, he was captured, nursed back to health and returned to Pigeon Forge.

Back in Tennessee, he was put into a large enclosure with a live rabbit to see if he was capable of capturing his own food.

Instead, Wilbur explained, Mr. Lincoln and the rabbit became friends that week.

Now he serves as an ambassador for the organization devoted to caring for his species and other birds of prey.

For more photos from the program, click here.

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