Saturday, Sandy and I went to a luncheon at White Oak Conservation Center. Going there is always a cause for excitement. It was a beautiful, crisp day. The sky seems to look bluer there. As we were driving in, we stopped to admire the white rhinos grazing in the field.
One of the neatest things I have ever seen was a herd of the rhinos galloping across a field. I never knew they could do that. Very fast. My advice: get out of the way.
We were there for a bird show before lunch. The show, different from most, presented a lot of wild birds, many endangered species, coming to the stage, and, for treats, strutted their stuff for trainer Steve Martin. Martin made sure to differentiate himself from the "wild and crazy guy", saying he is the "mild and lazy" Steve Martin. He talked about the birds and conservation and the environment throughout the show. His message: man can mess up the 
environment, but only man can salvage it again. Many of these species are on the rebound. For instance, the bald eagle was recently taken off the endangered species list. The big Andean condor here has a wingspan of ten feet. The Andean condor is one of the new additions to the White Oak menagerie.
Here's Steve Martin on the right with Escrow the Crow, who took a dollar bill from someone in the audience, and gave it to Martin. He later returned it. Martin says crows and ravens are the smartest birds. His training method? Patience and reward. Reward good behavior and ignore bad behavior. He says it works with birds, animals, people.
This suriyama eats lizards. It picks them up and beats them on a rock to break their bones and tenderize them. This one took a rubber alligator and beat the crap out of it. Martin had quite the time getting it to give it up at the end, too. Determined bird. Very funny to watch. I wrote the name down, but can't find it in Google, so I don't know if it's spelled right.
Perhaps the most beautiful was a 45-year old African fish eagle, left. She looked a lot like a bald eagle, but with more white on her head. We also saw a Maribou stork, which had a ten-foot wing span. It's related to the vulture. 
The condor also had a ten-foot span, which is about as wide as the spread gets in bird-dom. The stork had a bald head, like vultures do, because it too eats carion. According to Martin, the bald head allows the sun to kill germs that get on the head. After eating rotten meat and germy garbage all day, you don't want it festering in your feathers. He emphasized that these birds are nature's recyclers, and that without them to clean up carcasses in the wild, everything would be overridden with disease and pestilence. I guess we probably wouldn't even be here.
Go, vultures!
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