This is some introductory show into a discipline I’ve never touched on before. Members of the Cornell raptor program showed us hawks, falcons & owls of different kinds one by one and talked about their various biological features, habitats, diets, etc.. A fact that surprised me is that the raptors were not just randomly collected and kept as zoo animals. What the program members keep are all birds with unknown injuries (that they attained before being collected) that are not suitable for returning to the wild.

Owls particularly attracted my attention for I’ve always heard of owls under some magical and legendary context, whether the famous Harry Potter series or the less-famous ones. A stunning fact was that the size of the eyes of an owl to its skull is similar to a human fist to a human head. That was the result of their being able to turn their heads almost 180 degrees around, since they cannot really turn their eyes so easily. Indeed, every advantage has its reason, and usually it is accompanied by some setbacks…

When an owl was standing for the show, it turned its head just right back and stared at the people taking photos of him. This aroused laughter among us–it’s just peculiarly that we humans find it funny and cute. My wild imagination started to take place, however–they once had stories too. They, as individuals, must have had their legends and romances before they retracted to the organization. Maybe they were nearly dead during a heroic fight. Maybe they determined to give up their lives trying to protect some other important beings. Or maybe they had simply been another victim of the expanding human race. And the features of their body, once so powerful and awe-inspiring, became on display. You can say that this is an inevitable tragedy, but it can hardly be criticized. This is the outcomes of comparison of civilization…

I would guess what the birds are thinking about. Maybe they are secretly weeping about their lives. Or maybe they were laughing at the dramatic situation that they are in–this is so much like the plot in Catch Me if You Can, where the hero soaring in the wild ended up in some sort of demonstration position (except that the birds are not criminals). Or maybe they didn’t really think about anything, just feeling ok to have survived and lived well.

Anyways, thanks to the Cornell raptor program for keeping the wild spirits from other possible unimaginable situations. It is good that we can know more about the birds and at least try to communicate with them.