07/09/2016 Falconry Experience.

Wednesday 7 September 2016

Sue and I have just spent a very pleasant 4 hours at the Countryside Falconry at the Old Barn in Cudham, Kent with Randal Carey the Head Falconer as our host.  

• Within minutes we were hands on with the birds.

harris's hawk

• Next stop was to take the harris's hawks into the fields to see them flying around and returning to pick up food from our gloved hands.

harris's hawk landing on Sue's glove

Then it was back to the centre where we repeated the process - this time with the owls.

barn owl

• Finally we got to handle as many of the owls as we could in the remaining time.  Look at the pics below for a taster of our experience.

tawny owl

eagle owl

scop's owl

who are you looking at?

A couple of falconry terms that have fed into normal English language usage. 

• "under the thumb"

• "twisted around my little finger" 

Two for the price of one! A falcon has a leash (called a “jess”) to stop it from flying away. When the bird is on the falconer’s arm, he’ll put part of the jess “under his thumb” or “wrap it around his little finger” to keep control of the bird.

This was a 70th birthday present from Adam and Jean and it has taken us nearly 10 months to get round to organising it, but ..........  .....................................................................................................  

                                           what a treat!