Today was a beautiful spring day. Lots of warm sunshine and temps that hit 60 degrees. Such a great change after all the cold and gloom we've had over the past few weeks.

I began my day by meeting up with a friend and photographing Bald Eagles. From there, we went to Wild Mountain Birds in Rosendale to see the rehabilitator who took in the injured red tailed hawk I stumbled across a few weeks ago. She took out many of her educational birds for us to see and photograph. Some of them had names, others did not. They all had their own personal story that had led them into Annie's care. 

We saw birds of many ages and many different species as Annie brought out several different owls, hawks and an american kestrel. The hawks all seemed thrilled to be outside and soaking in the warmth of the sunshine. All the birds were beautiful and amazing to watch and observe. It was interesting to see their behaviors with each other as well as with other birds they saw or heard in the wild. The young red tail was fascinating to watch as she observed all the song birds that flew around, carefully watched a vulture that was flying around and had a conversation with a red tail in the wild. 

Annie is a very busy and amazing woman! Everything she does to rehabilitate injured birds is amazing. And all the time and effort she's put into her educational birds and getting them out to educate others is really awesome! The love and dedication that she puts into her raptors is truly inspiring. 

I have many photo's that I will eventually post to my Facebook page, but for now I want to share this beautiful Barn Owl in my blog post. The Barn Owl is extremely rare in our area and is a nocturnal bird. They require large, open areas for hunting and typically roost in tree cavities, barns and silo's. They hunt by flying low and searching for their prey (small rodents) by sound and low light vision. The oldest known Barn Owl lived to be 15 years old.

I'm still in awe by this amazing opportunity I was able to experience today!