Alberta Birds of Prey

Willie and I with the Member of Parliament of Lethbridge Jim Hillyer.

My work:D

The ducks, although they did try to make a jailbreak the other day...I love them they are so cute. Putting food on your stomach and letting them eat it, it feels like they're tickling you!(This was one of the kids at our summer camps favourite things to do)

This here is little Mario. He is five/six years old and a burrowing owl. He was born at the centre as part of the burrowing owls breeding project. Unfortunately he won't be released but will be used as an educational tool for people visiting the centre. He is the nicest bird in the whole world!

This is a baby burrowing owl with no name right now. He is only a few months old.

This is where I get to eat lunch, well this is my view. It is overlooking a pond at the side of the centre. Ah the views, too bad they don't compare to my mountains of B.C.

Of course me holding little Mario all by myself. Notice no glove?! Yeah, cause I work there one of the things I get to enjoy...his talons aren't that sharp its like if someone was grabbing onto you and their nails are touching your skin, no big deal. I love mario:)

My work has been so amazing. I am lucky to have been placed here almost two and a half months ago. With eight days left of work I realized that I havent really posted much about my work. So here it is. I work at the Alberta Birds of Prey Centre located in Coaldale which is a twenty minute drive from Lethbridge. I have worked there from July 15th until September 23rd, Monday thru friday. I get picked up at 8:20ish, and then work until five and get dropped off at the Katimavik house at five twenty ish. For the first week of work I got to work at a summer camp! The kids got to learn about birds, build bird boxes, plant little plants, go looking for pond creatures, do some steve spangler science stuff, play games, and feed the ducks. It was a fun and hectic first week of work but it was tons of fun. The next week we just did misc. work. Cleaning the bird baths, raking, weeding, cleaning, a little bit of everything. Then we were asked to water trees, so thats what we did most of the summer. Although we did get to spend some time with the birds. We cleaned out their compartments, their baths and changed their baths. Then towards the middle of august we finally got to hold some birds, we learned the knot needed to tie them to their perches and got to hold the burrowing owls. So for the last few weeks we have been holding burrowing owls. Now the centre is closed though, so I have no idea what we are going to be doing. Although one of the things we are probably going to do is prepare the nestboxes for the next season. meaning clean them out, bleach them, write down what nest was in there, and then tape it shut. Always a new adventure. I am sad its almost ending but hey its life, at least I got to enjoy this experience. How many other people can say they get to work here? Spray off eagles? hold burrowing/barn/great horned owls? skin chicks for flight demonstrations? See an immature bald eagle fly in a flight demonstration? Have ducks eat food off their stomach? See these amazing birds everyday?! I'm going to miss my job!