Saturday, June 5, 2010

2nd HONEYMOON?


We dropped our younger daughter off at the
church so they can catch the ferry to Juneau
for a week at camp. The youth pastor heard
both of our kids will be out of town for a week
and said A second honeymoon for you!

Umm, we didn't have a first honeymoon dude.

When we got married we had just purchased
a house and property and had flown my
mother in law in from Poland for the wedding.
We had enough money left to buy tickets to
state fair and we used some of our wedding
money to buy ourselves an oil painting at
the fair for our new house.

One day we will take time for a real vacation
to someplace warm and interesting and we'll
call that our honeymoon.

So after dropping our daughter off at church
we went down to have lunch at Kenny's. They
have the best lunchbowls! My favorite is the
Sweet & Sour Chicken bowl.

We left there and were walking along downtown
when we came across a raptor eating something
on the grass of the public area. I thought at first
it was an immature Bald Eagle because of the
feather coloring, but it is a Red Tailed Hawk.

Turns out this man is visiting from Valdez and
he is a falconer. The bird he had with him is
apparently hard to deal with so when he leaves
he has to take him along. He had a dog kennel
in the back of his truck that the bird stayed in,
but he had him out on the grass so he could eat.

He is a one year old Red Tail Hawk that he saved up
in Valdez. This bird had been knocked out of the nest
and was dying on the ground when he found him.
He named him Lucky.

He is devouring a quail that this man has flown in from
a quail reserve in WA state. He eats every bit of the bird,
even the feathers (for roughage) and the bones (calcium)
I asked why not feed him moose or deer meat and he
said it doesn't have enough calcium. Their diet in the
wild consists of mainly voles. We watched him eat
the head in one gulp. Wow, you learn something
everyday, don't you?



It was drizzling--see the rain drops accumulating on
the feathers? Kind cool the way it was beading up and
rolling off.


He had a little stand that he carries with him and just
puts the bird out on it with a tether. He didn't care
we were watching, he just ate the whole bird.



See how full his chest is from eating? Now he
is fine for the man to pick up without any arm
protection. He said when the bird is hungry he
has to wear arm protection because he is very
agitated and the talons really dig in and hurt.

This man was interesting to talk to--very
informed and turns out he is also a 4th
degree Black Belt in Tae Kwon Do at 59
years old.

I doubt anybody messes with
these two.



He's all--Back Off Lady, Sheesh.



1 comment:

Debbie in CA : ) said...

Truly informative! Thank you. I just love coming to see what you are up to in the great North West . . . always something interesting and often quite educational.

Never thought of Alaska as a place to live; but since meeting you, Alaska looks pretty good -- at least the views from The Ladies'
House. : D