Adam Winegarden, a presenter with the Carolina Raptor Center in Huntersville, detailed the habits of the Mississippi kite for several hundred people on Wednesday at the Scotland County Memorial Library.

Adam Winegarden, a presenter with the Carolina Raptor Center in Huntersville, fielded questions about the barred owl and other owl species on Wednesday at the Scotland County Memorial Library.

In a Wednesday program at the Scotland Memorial Library, Adam Winegarden of the Carolina Raptor Center demonstrated several species of raptor, including a golden eagle.

Children felt the difference between the wings of nocturnal and diurnal raptors following Wednesday’s presentation at the library.

LAURINBURG — More than 600 people got acquainted on Wednesday with a kind of raptor that you won’t see on the big screen at a showing of Jurassic World.

During this week’s installation of the Scotland County Memorial Library summer reading program, Adam Winegarden, a presenter with the Carolina Raptor Center in Huntersville, issued a caution not uncommon in a library, but for an uncommon reason: so as not to disturb five flighty guests.

Two of the birds were acquired because they have been injured and cannot return to the wild, such as a golden eagle who lost a wing to a gunshot, and the barred owl left blind after being hit by a car.

Other raptors presented on Wednesday were a red-tailed hawk, a Mississippi kite — which preys on dragonflies — and the smallest, an Eastern screech owl, which elicited murmurs of wonder from nearly every member of the audience when Winegarden revealed it.

He dispelled the myth that owls can rotate their heads without limitation; rather, they can turn 270 degrees in either direction. That ability helps owls to compensate for the total immobility of their eyes, which are very large and heavy relative to the size of the birds.

The primary differences between raptors and other birds are their sinewy talons, beaks ending in a sharp, hooked point, and keen eyesight which allows them to see clearly from a great distance — all features that make them fierce hunters of small prey.

“They use their beak in conjunction with their feet; they use them together and I like to say that’s their silverware set,” said Winegarden. “Raptors’ talons are kind of like forks, their beaks act like knives, and they use their fork to hold it down and their knife to cut it up.”

Though he did not bring any vulture specimens to show, Winegarden noted that the infamous scavengers are also classified as raptors and play an irreplaceable role in the ecosystem.

“You see them on the side of the road, they’re in the way of your car, they’re eating the dead stuff, but they’re very, very, very important,” he said. “They’re nature’s garbage men, they are cleaning up all the dead carcasses on the road and in the forest. Without vultures, we would have widespread disease like rabies and botulism, and there would be rotting carcasses all over the ground.”

The Mississippi kite, a medium-sized gray raptor with a breeding range throughout the southeast and up the Mississippi River as far north as Missouri, actually inspired the name of the toy, as both effectively glide once airborne.

The kite flapped its wings frequently without attempting to fly, exhibiting a rowing behavior to calm its nerves in front of a boisterous crowd.

Winegarden also demonstrated the difference between the feathers of diurnal raptors, which hunt during the day, and nocturnal raptors like owls, comparing the obtrusive swooshing of a red-tailed hawk wing to the silence of a great horned owl’s wing.

“If you’re a daytime hunter, you don’t have to worry about being quiet,” he said. “Everything can see you coming, the sun is out, there’s no point trying to sneak up on prey.

“Things change a little bit at night. It is now very important that you are quiet when you are hunting. If you make any noise, everything is going to be listening for you and you’re going to give yourself away and you’re not going to eat.”

Mary Katherine Murphy can be reached at 910-506-3169.