A Visit to the Eugene Raptor Center
One lovely day in July, My friend Miriam, her dad Forrest and I attended the Cascades Raptor Center of Eugene, Oregon. I knew it was mostly full of rescued birds, but still felt a little concerned about all the cages. In my mind, birds in cages is just a very sad situation. So imagine my delight when I stepped up to the first raptor - Guillermo, an Aplomado Falcon and he stepped forward on his perch so he was inches away from my face, and started talking to me. The first thing he said was “take off your glasses”, which I promptly did. Then, looking straight into my eyes he told he how much he loved living here. How proud he was to be an ambassador for raptors, and how much fun he had interacting with all the people who showed up every day to visit with him. That would have been enough for me, but it kept going. Every cage I visited showed me another raptor who wanted me to know how happy and proud they were. Even the shy...