IN THE CLASSROOM -- Winging it

Danette Goulet

COSTA MESA -- Tragedy, better known as man, befell each of the

majestic winged creatures tethered at Davis Education Center on Monday

morning, stripping them of their freedom.

Slug is a screech owl who was shot through the right shoulder and eye.

Alice is an American kestrel falcon whose tree was put through a wood

chipper -- while she was in it.

Athena is a great horned owl who was hit by a car.

Isis, a red-tailed hawk, and J.R., a Harris hawk, were both stolen

from their nests when they were young and illegally raised by people.

Such actions have made the birds helpless without humans, because they

never learned to hunt -- a skill that would have been taught by the

birds’ parents.

None of these magnificent birds of prey, which were born to soar and

hunt, can survive in the wild any longer.

They are now cared for by the Orange County Bird of Prey Center and

act as educational tools.

Dave Raetz is an educator with the Inside the Outdoors program at the

Orange Country Department of Education who works with the center. While

they train and care for the birds, he acts as a handler and educator. He

brought the five birds to the school to teach children about them.

Raetz held J.R., the impressive Harris hawk, as Deena Franko’s

sixth-grade class eagerly approached.

He and the bird were greeted with immediate exclamations of “Holy

moly” and “Oh, wow.” A common reaction, it seems.

Children were instructed to look at J.R.’s eyes, beak and feet.

Looking at these areas allows one to differentiate birds of prey from

other birds that are predators, Raetz told students.

Having snared their attention with the hawk, Raetz put the creature

away and taught students about the various birds of prey.

He showed a slide show that didn’t skimp on the true nature of the

birds, as it showed a red-tailed hawk about to grab an opossum and

another dining on a rabbit. Raetz explained to a rather unconcerned group

why the rabbit’s death was necessary.

After the students sat through the slide show, Raetz had them up and

about. The students went to several stations around the room where they

picked through owl pellets, charted which bird’s wing span their own

reach matched and studied various bird skulls, wings and talons.

Their reward for being attentive was meeting the rest of the gang --

Slug, Alice, Athena and Isis.

Although all of the students were impressed, some were more so than

others.

As Raetz ducked to open the next cage after introducing the large

Athena, the great horned owl, 11-year-old Adam Jackson could be heard

praying: “Please don’t let this one be big.”

* IN THE CLASSROOM is a weekly feature in which Daily Pilot education

writer Danette Goulet visits a campus within the Newport-Mesa Unified

School District and writes about her experience.