Soldiers Delight Natural Environment Area (NEA) is comprised of 1,900 acres of serpentine barren. The area has over 39 rare, threatened, or endangered plant species as well as rare insects, rocks and minerals. Rare grassland plant species are threatened by invasion of Virginia Pines. Currently, a five year effort of removing 1,000 acres of pines and prescribed burning are underway to return the area to natural serpentine habitat. They offer many environmental education programs, and they have 7 miles of hiking trails.
They have many non-releasable animals and birds that are used in the educational programs. This past Saturday, Steve and I stopped in for their Open House, and wished we had gotten there sooner!
Here are some of the creatures we saw-
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| One of several Turkey Vultures...this particular one doesn't like men too much and was giving Steve the hairy eyeball! |
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| One of several Black Vultures. |
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| Red Tail Hawks, adult on left, juvie on right. |
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| American Kestrel | |
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| Great Horned Owl. Head trauma...you can see the left side of his face isn't working quite right. |
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| Red Shouldered Hawk. Hit by car, right eye had to be removed. |
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| Golden Eagle. Shot by poacher, right wing amputated. |
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| STINKBUG!!! Illegal alien. Soon to be eliminated! |
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| Bald Eagle. Ran into power line and left wing badly damaged. |
Wonderful pics, Lynne! Had to LOL at the stinkbug!
ReplyDeleteWhat a cool place.....where is it??? The poor birds....so glad that they are being well-cared for. All lovely despite their infirmities.
ReplyDeleteWere they trying to weight the stink bug??? LOL!
Thanks for the pictures Lynne..sad seeing birds-raptors that have been injured. Happy there is a place that could help them plus careing for them.
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