World Center for Birds of Prey

Teri and I have spent the last couple of day in the Boise, Idaho area. While much dryer and browner than northern Idaho is is still an interesting place to see.

One of the places that we visited was the World Center for Birds of Prey, which is the headquarters for The Peregrine Fund. They started out as an organization to save the Peregrine Falcon, but have since gone on to conserve many other species including the Aplomado Falcon and California Condor.

During the two winters that we volunteered at Laguna Atascosa NWR we saw many of the re-introduced Aplomado Falcons and knew of the Peregrine Fund's work down there, but we never had direct contact with any of their biologists.

We arrived just in time to catch their last presentation of the afternoon. Their biologist explained the history of the Peregrine Fund and showed us a male Peregrine Falcon that they used for education.

We talked with him a bit afterwards and mentioned our time down in the Valley seeing the Aplomado Falcons. That got the two of us a "secret" tour of the back areas here he showed us a recently arrived Aplomado from Laguna that had a broken leg. We also got to look at other falcons, hawks, and owls in the back. 

Once back out into the public areas we viewed an Ornate Hawk-Eagle which is a species that we've seen in the wild in Belize and Panama.

We finally headed back outside where we viewed a captive breeding pair of California Condors in a large flight cage. Faces only a mother could love!!

These folks are doing some good things, and we were pleased to make the visit. 

Mark