Bald Eagle

John & I took a trop to Callaway gardens in Georgia on Friday and spent the entire day. That is a 15,000-acre garden and park located about one hour and a half west of Atlanta. There were lots of things to see there but I want to tell you about two of them.

There was the Butterfly house that was huge and humid. It was filled with tropical plants. When you inter through the doors you are surrounded with thousands of flying butterflies. They had one exhibit where you could watch the butterflies emerge from the cocoons. What an awesome site to see indeed. Hundreds of species, colors and sizes.

The other was a wildlife presentation of connivers. They are large birds of the wild that eat other animals and fish. The setting was on the bank of a small lake, we were facing the lake and the trainer was facing us. There were two rows of seats with a walkway down through the center of us. Behind us at the back was a perch for the birds to land on and there was also one in the front by the trainer. There were two tower-like buildings (one on the other side of the lake to our left and the other to our right. They housed the big birds. As he would place a piece of meat down on the perch beside him, another trainer would open one of the doors of the cages and down wood swoop an Great Horned Owl. Then another trainer would place a piece of meat at the back perch and the Owl would fly between us down the isle. As he flew, you could not hear his wings flap. His flight was completely silent. Then back into the cage, as he was tempted once again with a piece of meat. That process went on with several birds. Then they brought out a Red Tailed Hawk. He came to the perch then he waived for him to fly up into the adjacent tree in front of us. The hawk flew way up into the top of the pine tree. Then as the trainer dropped a small leather bag on the ground in front of him, the hawk folded his wings back and dove head down toward the ground like a bullet. So fast we could hardly see him. Then he dropped his feet down and grabbed the leather bag. It was an awesome sight.

The last was a beautiful Bald Eagle. He came from across the lake to the perch. But un-rehearsed, he flew off the perch back across the lake and caught a fish and brought if back to the perch. The cute little trainer was beside himself. It was only the second time the eagle had ever done anything like this. The bird had been in captivity all his life and had a deformed beak and was not able to tare his food well enough to eat it. It was a small shad and it did not take much for him to devour it. We were all very impressed with the show, to say the least.