Carys and Dagger, the Harris Hawk

For her birthday back in May, we gave Carys a voucher for a Birds of Prey Experience. I booked it for today thinking that as it was a Friday it would be relatively quiet and that we would have good weather. The first was correct, the second was not!

We were the only people in our group for the first three birds and then two others turned up. But the other group had thirteen people in it so I think we did well. Carys only got to fly four birds due to the inclement weather but she loved it. The first was a Kestrel,  a small bird to get her used to the birds flying to her, then this beautiful Harris Hawk, Dagger (who behaved impeccably despite having an apparent tendency to do his own thing), a Bengal Eagle Owl called Lenny and finally a stunning Chilean Eagle.

By then we were very wet and so were the birds. The flying display was cancelled, so we didn't get to watch that, but Carys also got to handle a Barn Owl, a Peregrine Falcon and a Brown owl thats call sounded like a balloon going down, but I missed the actual name of the species.

By the end Carys was shivering with the wet and cold, she was also suffering from an end of term cold, but she told me she had had a great time. She certainly seemed to enjoy it and asked lots of sensible questions. As we left the Falconer thanked her for being so well behaved and chatty because it made her job easier, which was also nice.