Bird show & museum

The bird show turned out to be well worth the drive! It was at the Hutchings Museum in Lehi. We'd never been there before. We spent some time looking through the museum before and after the show. I was surprised how large the museum is and how well they've used their space. There are a lot of interesting things there. T. liked the woolly mammoth tooth and using Morse code on a telegraph. The huge room full of different rocks and minerals was one of A.'s favorite parts, and M. liked the video about the Pony Express. They all loved the bird show, which was funny and informative -- the best combination.



Here's a gyrfalcon, with a little kestrel sitting on the glass case behind it.




And the one we especially came to see -- a peregrine falcon. The man who's holding it said when he read My Side of the Mountain in third grade, he knew he wanted to work with falcons. Now he's the head of an organization that breeds falcons and helps rehabilitate injured ones, and he gets to go around teaching other people about them too. I wonder how many other falconers got their inspiration from the same book. Probably a lot!

And this is a golden eagle -- a young male, only 8 pounds. They said they would have brought a female (20 pounds), but then they wouldn't have been able to fit the other birds in the van.

We also got to see a goshawk, a Harris hawk, a screech owl and a great horned owl. Even T. stayed interested for the whole hour, and he's not one to sit still for most things!