The World's Best Raptor Shoot

Raptors: the hawks, owls, eagles and falcons. No other group of birds stirs the imagination, lifts our spirits and symbolizes noble qualities more than these. This is your best opportunity to photograph birds of prey under controlled conditions. Against a backdrop of Colorado's 14,000-foot mountains, a wide variety of raptors are brought together to provide an unparalleled opportunity to learn about and capture, with your camera, these hunters of the wind.

Participants work with master falconers, educators and raptor rehabilitation experts who collectively represent more than 100 years of experience with raptors.

We expect to photograph 18 or more species during the photographic sessions. They may include the peregrine and prairie falcons, gyrfalcon, American kestrel, Harris', ferruginous, red-tailed and Swainson's hawks, northern goshawk, northern harrier, golden and bald eagles, plus great horned, short-eared, screech, burrowing, barred and barn owls, or others. Some of the birds are flown free and/or perched in aesthetically pleasing locations with beautiful, natural backgrounds. No cages are used. The birds are in excellent physical condition and should provide for natural portraits as well as some exciting action images.

Several beautiful habitats are used for the photography: rolling prairie grassland, forested foothills and rocky cliffs under brilliant Colorado skies. October brings the rich fall colors of oak and aspen, plus the warm golds and browns of prairie grasses. Traditional falconry techniques can be photographed during our shoots and—prey available—a golden eagle eating a (road-killed) rabbit, squirrel or prairie dog. We witness events that take place every day in the wild, but we are there to watch, learn and generate many spectacular photographic images.

Your photographs from this shoot will look like you spent the last five years of your life in a remote photo blind. There is, literally, no other wildlife models photo opportunity in the world that compares to this one!