Good as Golden

This gallery contains 4 photos. An adult Golden Eagle that was photographed at the Sixth Annual Raptor Festival in Terra Nova Rural Park, Richmond, BC, on August 17. This young male was the fourth and final raptor to be exhibited, and he was not allowed to free fly just yet. 🙂 Still an impressive raptor and one, unlike the bald eagle (for whom the young can often be mistakenly identified as Golden Eagles), that I had never seen before.

Here is a shot of the same Golden Eagle being brought around to the crowd by its Raptors handler — and it was itching to fly! The Raptors is a Duncan, Vancouver Island-based organization dedicated to the education, rehabilitation, and conservation of raptors/birds of prey like this one.

Golden Eagles are revered in certain cultures for their hunting abilities. This is made possible thanks to their speed, and also to corneas that are almost entirely clear; eagles have the best vision in the animal kingdom, which lets them spot potential prey (even through water) from miles away. This keen vision is exponentially better than ours as well (by a factor of up to 10X) — hence the term “eagle vision”.

Such a piercing stare!