Falconry Displays

Archive for January, 2020

We are experiencing some lovely cold, crisp and bright days at the moment which is a welcome change to what has seemed like weeks of wet and windy weather. It is nice to look out for signs of Spring – the Rooks were building nests as I drove to an event over Christmas or I should say had largely built their nests. I watched a pair of Buzzards nest building the other day – taking small  twigs from surrounding trees and a repairing a nest from last year. They may have been a young pair nest building for practice as the nest appeared to be an old crows nest – but I shall keeping watching and see what transpires in the coming weeks.

We are enjoying a quiet time at the moment with the daily flying of the birds – which for me is the best part of the job. Having started as an amateur my love for birds of prey and falconry has not diminished – so seeing them fly and improve with daily training is great.

I always say to guests judge me on my falconry and not on my dog training skills – if ‘Madam’ happens to be with me.

Anyway I will sign off with a picture of her from last week.

Happy New Year!

Well 2020 is here – incredible – time marches on! We had a good festive season having worked on Christmas Day and then Boxing Day – but still plenty of time to enjoy the holiday period.

The main change for this year ahead is a slight change in format for shows in that the two shorter demos become one longer one. For afternoon events this works better within the time restricted format and produces a better display. For returning event organisers that are familiar with the old format then it will stay the same in most cases. For the ‘all day event’ of a larger country fayre for example we will still offer the ‘two flying displays’ along with the static display.

We trialled these changes last season and they really worked well.

The year ahead business wise is unknown but as always we hope for the best.

I saw a wild Barn Owl the other day driving near to home – which was quite wonderful – such a rare bird but with nest boxes going up in many places it has made something of return – which is very encouraging. Hopefully I may see it again.

Well I am going to sign off with a nice picture of ‘Bo’ our Eagle Owl flying just before Christmas. Thanks to Paul – a local photographer – for the photo.