A big shout out to my parents for our awesome day! For the hubby's birthday, my parents bought him a gift certificate for a half-day falconry experience and then we bought one for me.
We headed out to Heddingham Castle for our experience. It's a fantastic Norman castle and has absolutely beautiful grounds. After parking, we headed up to meet with the group. It wasn't too large of a group, only ten people actually flying birds with a few more spectators.
There were three people working that day and they were all fantastic. You could ask anything about the birds and they'd have an answer! And they were just plain fun to be around so that makes everything better. The experience started right away with a male Barn Owl, named Gizmo (he's a ring bearer for weddings!). He was a beaut! They did a quick demo on how to handle the birds: don't touch and hold the piece of meat up so they can see. Then we went for it!
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| Yum! Baby chicken! |
Eventually Gizmo got full of food and was no longer interested in it. This is because owls do not have a pouch in their neck to store food like other birds (like hawks). They have to stop like us.
Next, we got to meet one of the Harris Hawks. You could feel the power when it landed on your arm. It came fast and hard! The hawk was much larger than the Barn Owl and had a mind of its own. It would fly off into the tops of the trees and they'd have to convince the hawk to come back down.
From a large bird, we moved on to a very small one! We got to meet Elmo, the White Faced Scops Owl. He was tiny but ferocious! He was growling like crazy. I've never heard a growl like that come out of a bird and those eyes! Don't want to meet this bird down a dark alley ;)
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| A gem of a picture! |
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| Hehe. This kind of looks like the owl did a photobomb |
The main trainer, Steve told us he wanted us to send him photos. We said that we would and that we would also write a blog about it. Of course, he loved that and made us extremely happy because he said to watermark our images. I have thought about it in the past but wasn't sure if we were really up to that level but he would be worried about people stealing pictures for competitions. Obviously that would be bad so we agreed. My godmother, Cindy, who is an artist is going to see about making me an awesome one but this will do for now! (Look Ma, we have talent!)
After all this, our half-day experience was over. We started to walk away to explore the castle but came back and asked if we could extend to a full day since we loved it so much! They said yes so we got to continue our adventure!
Us, the three trainers, and another couple headed up to eat lunch and had great conversations. From lunch, we headed back to the birds where we got to fly a Raven. We saw those a distance at the Tower of London so were excited to see them up close.
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| Obviously loves his birds! |
From the Ravens, we headed into the woods with two Harris Hawks. We did a hike through the woods with the birds. They'd fly around the trees and we would get them back down every once in a while with food. They are extremely agile and it was amazing to see them in their natural habitat weaving through the dense forest. They even killed a mouse! It was a little disconcerting to hear the bells ringing (attached to their feet so we knew where they were) and have a big bird swoop down and nearly take off your head! But that was part of the thrill!
That was an amazing experience but our next bird was just as cool! We got to fly an eagle! Mika, the Fish Eagle! It's Africa's answer to the United States' Bald Eagle. They are very similar. This was the biggest bird we got to fly and it had so much power! It was a bit scary to see it coming toward you since natural instinct would be to duck and cover but was so great! It even pulled on my hair at one point, apparently trying to fix my hairstyle.
Overall, our day was fantastic. The day was beautiful, the trainers were friendly and knowledgeable and the birds were breathtaking. I would highly recommend doing an experience with Lavenham Falconry! They have so many great birds and I can't wait to go back to see more!
http://lavenhamfalconry.co.uk/
