This past weekend my sister and I attended the Raptor Workshop hosted by Flint Creek Wildlife Rehabilitation.  They are a fantastic organization dedicated to helping injured and orphaned wildlife.  They treat all species of wild birds, reptiles and amphibians and treats all wild mammals excluding skunks, bats and raccoons. (although they can refer you to a wildlife organization who helps raccoons if you happen to find one).  We have called them a couple times over the years for advice on various wildlife we have found and have even brought them a few injured creatures.

The raptor workshop is designed as an introduction to birds of prey and their care targeted for Nature Center and wildlife staff and volunteers, along with those just serious about birds of prey. Jackie and I learned about this class from the Flint Creek website and were immediately interested in taking it.

The workshop covers an amazing about of information for 1.5 days of work.  Granted this is a high level view of raptors and their care and handling, but it was very detailed and interesting.  It is meant to prepare students for the 10 week raptor internship (also through Flint Creek) where you go into further detail on raptor care and work more with the raptors.

The first day was spent on the legal bits of caring for raptors – there are a ton of laws and regulations at both the state and federal level that govern what and how Flint Creek must care for not only rescued wildlife but also its education birds.  Flint Creek’s goal is to release every animal it rescues back to the wild so they have few education birds (compared to other centers).  Flint Creek uses a variety of methods to make sure birds (and other animals) released get the best chance possible to survive and their numbers show that they are succeeding at their mission.

On Day 2 of the workshop, we got to handle 2 of the smaller raptors – an American Kestrel and a Screech Own.  Now a kestrel is probably my favorite raptor so I was really excited and Jackie loves owls so she was equally as excited.  The workshop size is kept small and the volunteers allot enough time they we were both able to handle both raptors.

Although we would both like to continue on to the raptor internship, we aren’t sure at this point if we have the time in our schedules.  The internship is held once a year and only has spots for 8 people but you get hands-on training in all aspects of caring for captive birds of prey.   Its a 10 week course but if you pass you can go for your raptor handler certification and even volunteer at Flint Creek to work in their raptor program.  For Jackie and I, it would be a way to help any injured/orphaned raptors while also supporting a great organization in our area.

For more information on Flint Creek Wildlife Rehabilitation, please check out their website at http://www.flintcreekwildlife.org/