Iam Back

 Ok I am back.  I have been pretty busy with projects around the house and video stuff for our church.  The church video will be a busy time until after Christmas. Plus we had a rash of memorial services recently that were live streamed. 

So in October I attended a photographers event at the Arizona-Sonoran Desert Museum, near Tucson.  One of my favorite place to make images.  We are members there and just love to go, but don't get to go as much as we like.  They of course have captive native animals but the natural habitat draws a lot of wild animals into the area, to add to the excitement.    

The October event for photographers is all about the opportunity to photograph raptures in a somewhat controlled environment.  They have raptors that participate in what is billed as " Free Flight" .  They coral the audience into a small area and bring the raptors out and release them and they fly off and then return to the human pens...sometimes flying just inches over your head.  They only do this from November through about April.  Once it warms up the stop the program.  

In the fall prior to resuming the program they work with the birds each morning to get them back in the grove so to speak.  That's when they offer the (2) photography events.  We get to photography the birds practicing.  

The birds are banded and have a transmitter for locating the flyaways.  But that's it.  They can fly off any time they want to..and sometimes they do.  

Our first raptor was a Chihuahuan Raven.  They are pretty common in this part of the country.  Very similar to a common raven, but slightly smaller and if the wind is blowing  you will sometimes see  white on the base of the neck feathers. 

This one is just coming in for a landing.  If you look closely, you might pick out the antennae of the transmitter.  It's pretty well camouflaged on the dark bird.