Jeff's New Girl

So, I was at the zoo last Saturday, engaged in one of our many bird shows. After our shows end various staff members and volunteers will come out and hold birds (of prey) so that the visitors can come up for a closer look and talk to us bird-handling folk, wise in the ways of the wol. We have three shows a day, and after the second one there's always a bit of a lull. Well, there is after the first one, as well, but that's when we eat lunch. Our brown-bag lunches (the zoo actually has two rather nice restaurants; we eat at the third one).

So, anyway, after our second show, I was enjoying a sit-down backstage and one of the staff asks me if I would like to hold a Harris' Hawk. I, of course, reply favorably and, within a minute, I have the black-and-red beauty on my arm.

Now, I am used to holding owls. Owls are cute and pudgy (seriously, it's all I can do to not "boop" their widdle beaks). But a hawk... it's like going from a kitty cat to a dog. Now, those that know me well will know that I have no special love for dogs (due to a phobia, among other things), but I do not mean that I disliked the hawk; it just has more energy. Whereas an owl might start to drift off after a time on my fist, this bird was eyeing me just about the whole time.

What was especially unnerving (aside from that permanent scowl all hawks have) was that every now and then, she would let out this mean-sounding snarl (it's the same sound they used for the Spitter [Dilophosaurus --Ed.] in Jurassic Park). And, to top this off, they had me sit with her on stage near the edge.

So, not only do I have a wild predator growling at my face from less than a foot away, but I'm terrified that she's going to bate (attempt to fly while still attached to the glove) and throw me off balance and the stage. And those visitors don't look very soft...

So, in betweenst cool surges of adrenaline, I got to admire a wondrous creature. And my supervisor congratulated me on being one of a rare few who didn't have her lunge at my face.