Renaissance Festival gives look at raptors of the world

Chester Moore, Jr.
The Orange Leader

Sat, May 17 2008

— The Texas Renaissance Festival is not just about period clothing, turkey legs and jousting. It offers a chance to have a up, close and personal look at some of the world’s most beautiful and mysterious birds of prey.
Florida-based Wild Sky Productions headed by Robby and Shannon Sinkler is putting on a birds of prey show that I had the pleasure to see last Saturday at the festival’s falconry stage.
Coming from someone who has seen wildlife shows all around the world, I can honestly say this one is top notch.
“We want to give people a fun, educational experience about birds of prey showing them species they might see in their backyards as well as more exotic species from around the world,” Shannon Sinkler said.The show started off with a look at North America’s most common raptor, the red-tailed hawk, which is an active hunter with incredible eyesight.
“These birds are very effective predators and help to control rodent populations,” Sinkler said.
One of the most interesting portions of the show involved a Eurasian Eagle Owl and a Western great-horned owl.
“Owls are probably the hardest of the birds to train. They have a reputation for being very wise but in reality, they have very small skulls that eye sockets and nerve endings take up most of the space. They have smaller brains than the other birds of prey,” Sinkler said.The owl demonstration showed how the birds can turn their heads about 270 degrees, which isn’t a full turn at 360 degrees but much more than humans who can turn their heads less than 180 degrees.
Owls cannot quite pull of an “Exorcist” head turn but seeing them get pretty close is quite impressive.One of the real standouts of the show is an African white-backed vulture, a species commonly seen feeding on carrion on wildlife documentaries and one renowned for its ferocious appetite.“These birds are our most dangerous because of the power of their beaks. They have virtually no grip with their claws because they are a scavenger but their beaks can penetrate rhino and elephant hide, so we have to be careful handling them,” Sinkler said.
In an amazing demonstration of power and a sheer desire to eat, “Ed”, Wild Sky Production’s resident white-backed vulture ate an entire chicken drumstick in seven seconds.
“Ed” wasn’t the only vulture in the show. They also featured a black vulture, native to Southeast Texas that according to Sinkler has a very valuable role in nature.
“They clean up the road kill and the dead animals in the woods, which helps curtail the spread of disease.”
All of the birds in this show ranging from the beautiful hawks and owls to the (let’s best honest) ugly vultures are trained using positive reinforcement.
“For these birds it’s all about survival and food and we train them by rewarding them. Affection means nothing to them like it would to a dog or some other animal and that presents its own unique challenges,” Sinkler said..All of the birds either come from captive breeders or are from wildlife rehabilitation centers.“The rehab birds are ones that either have an injury that might prevent them from surviving in the wild or are ‘imprinted’ to people which could cause problems with their survival. In other words, they are unreleasable so we are glad to make them part of our show and educate people about their many positive attributes,” Sinkler said.
“We have to realize birds of prey play a valuable role in a balanced ecosystem and hopefully by exposing people to them in a fairly intimate setting, we can raise awareness to their conservation needs.”
For more information go to http://www.texasrenfest.com or http://www.wildskyproductions.com.

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