The Birds (Part 2.2)

After having brought the 1st birds back to the centre and had our cup of tea, we wandered back down to the field to meet the final 3 birds.
First out was this beauty - now I can't remember the breed exactly - but I do recall that in the US they called it a hawk, and in the UK a buzzard. Anyway this one had an amazing feat of circling very very high up on the thermals, and the at a point, just tucking its wings in and coming in like a bullet! The 1st time it happened, we all took a step back! I'm sure I heard that "bomb-whine" sound effect in the background! As you can see, she had the most beautiful colouring. Snowy white chest feathers and then tawny highlights on back, legs and wings.

Next on the list was one of my favourites, the harris hawk. Super intelligent birds - they hunt in packs (the only bids to do so). Not only intelligent but absolutely beautiful; the dark brown colouring and little white tips to the tail - they're incredibly elegant in flight - the big tail allows great manoeverability - she was weaving in and out of the group of us as we were standing round waiting for our turn. The falconry centre offer an afternoon session after our morning 'meet the birds' (we didn't do it but I'd love to) and that's when you take out a pack of harris hawks and see if they can bring you home a rabbit for your stew pot!

So, finally, last on the list was the Centre's piece-de-resistance - an eagle! Not many places fly eagles to glove - I think it's something to do with the fact that they'd crush all the bones in your wrist with one squeeze of a talon, but they have a few that have been hand reared and therefore are in that 'thinking they're human' mode! Last time I was there, we flew the big sea eagle - it's a bit like having an alsatian flying towards you! Most impressive! This time we got the Bataleur Eagle - which was like having Professor Yaffle coming at ya....but scarier! This bird was a full stone - weighed loads compared with even the bigger hawk/buzzards (remember them who chase labradors!) and we had to have the chainmail glove, to protect from the talons, and we only got one go with him as he was a BIG bird and they find it hard to fly alot (unlike the harris hawk and the eagle owl who just kept bombing back and forth from their perch for the food). As you can see from the pic, he kept wandering around on the ground and walked like a little old man. He did have the most amazing colouring. Looked like someone had painted him in big blocks of brown, white and black. His main prey are snakes, so he's well-hard!

Anyway, that was our bidy experience - we had a really superb day - we both adore the birds, they're gorgeous - and we took far more piccies than have been shown here so if you want to see the rest then head on over to Picassa using this link, and peruse all the rest of em!