Raptor Obsession!

Aiden has a new obsession every few weeks these days...it's usually an animal or a class of animals, but I feel like we can barely keep track sometimes.  Last month it was snakes (we had to watch umpteen you tube videos of snake charmers and viper pits) and before that it was lizards, fueled (I think) by the "pet for a day" miniature gecko he found in Islamorada when we were there.  Now, it's birds of prey.  For the past week he's been studying bird guides and taking out library books on hawks and eagles like nobody's business...he wakes up and the first think he says is, "Mom, I love hawks!" and when he gets home from school he says "Dad, what could I study about hawks?"  At Windy Hill they finally broke down and found a 24-hour live nest-cam of a red-tail hawk nest in NYC and put it up on the whiteboard in the classroom so that the kids (i.e. Aiden) can watch it, larger than life, all day long.  One of his teachers told me the hawks caught a huge fat rat last tuesday, right when the kids were eating lunch, and the hawk proceeded to rip up this big rat with it's beak and feed it to the chick bit by bit.  The kids thought it was awesome, but the teachers were all struggling not to gag up their sandwiches. Yup, that's our Aiden. 

Screech Owl, Bald Eagles, Red Tailed Hawk @ VINS

So this weekend we took him to the Vermont Institute of Natural Science (VINS) raptor rehabilitation center.  Andy and I hadn't been there since Andy was in law school and they had a much shabbier facility further down the road in Quechee VT.  Now it's huge, and brand-new, and the hawk enclosures are really large.  We saw bald eagles and peregrine falcolns, turkey vultures and snowy owls...and many more... all with some sort of injuries that prevent them from returning to the wild.  Aiden was impressed with some of the birds he saw, but also surprised by how small some of the fierce-looking falcons and hawks of his bird guides were in real life.  The best part of the visit was an hour-long program where VINS staff brought out some different birds and had them make short flights (all they can really do) right in front of our noses.  Aiden sat way up in the front row and I think he raised his hand to answer about every question the presenters asked.  He also asked a bunch of his own questions about raptor behavior.  I just marvel at how NOTHING like me this kid is...I don't know about Andy but I don't think I voluntarily rose my hand to answer an adult's question until I was in college. I'm not sure where he came from, but it sure is fun for us to watch as parents, and we'll encourage the obsession-of-the-month as long as it's healthy and gets his mind working in a positive way!  

Aiden at VINS