Owl Moon Raptor Festival

Myself, as well as my wife and child had the privilege today to attend the annual Owl Moon Raptor Festival, hosted by the Owl Moon Raptor Center and located at Black Hill Regional Park in Maryland. Just to start off, this was a cool experience, to be up and close and personal with some owls (which are like one of my all time favorite birds), and other raptors, including ones I have never seen before!

The day was filled with excellent presentations, including one of Osprey in the Chesapeake Bay region (probably my favorite bird there is, if you don't know much about them seriously look them up they are freaking amazing) and how my own state VA, the last state on the east coast that allows for Menhaden reduction fishing is harming the Osprey making it difficult for them to find food. Outside of the just the Osprey this practice harms most of the wildlife in the Chesapeake region, I'll post some links at the bottom. We also got to see the release of a Cooper's hawk into the wild, which was pretty cool. Owl Moon rescues roughly around 500 birds a year, this year they told us they were already up over 600!

They had games for the kids with prizes, a raffle, food trucks, free snacks and drinks, merch, and of course a lot of raptors, many of which you could pet or even hold (with a glove), there was just so much to see and do. 

Speaking of that Coopers hawk, I didn't manage to get a good picture of the release, outside of it being the first time I have shot an event like this, the bird turned away from where I was when it took off, but mainly because I was using Nikon's amazing 400mm f4.5 lens, which honestly is just amazing, one of my favorite lenses I have ever shot, but it was a crowded event, and at 400mm you have to stand quite a ways back, which left others plenty of room to step right in front of my shot (happened a whole lot today). 

In truth I found shooting an event like this to be quite challenging, Im used to being out in the woods and at max maybe there is another 20 people around but there were hundreds here. That said I'm not complaining, first I enjoyed the challenge, and second I hope double go next year because this organization is amazing and they deserve all the attendance and donations they can get for the awesome work they do.

Lesson learned for next time, 400mm might be a touch too long, which I was worried about since I usually shoot an 800 :P, that said I think I got some awesome shots (see below), I learned a lot, both about wildlife, and how to shoot an event like this, and lastly and most importantly my family and I had an amazing time. My daughter even got to hold a burrowing Owl which she went crazy about, she was so excited. Let me go back a little to explain that, my kid talks about burrowing owls ALL THE TIME, she loves birds overall, but man does she love burrowing owls, she has always wanted to see one, and to have one sit on her hand, thats a lifelong memory for her! 

Huge thank you to Owl Moon Raptor Center, and all the volunteers at the event for an excellent day and a bigger thanks for all the work you do!! If any of you happen to come across this blog please think about offering a donation to Owl Moon if you can, the work they do is super important and they have so much of it to get done.

Here's some links to great great stuff: