Falconry Displays

We woke up to a wet morning. This is Easter Bank Holiday Monday and years ago or actually just three years ago I would likely be away today doing a show. These days far from worrying about the weather I can just feed the birds on the fist in the Hawk Room and get on with my day.

I am now an amateur falconer again and like Graham Watkins who kindly wrote the foreword to my book ‘Falconry – aspects of care of the trained falcon and hawk’ he similarly has also been through some major changes to the point of semi-retirement. We both found we love what we do. For me birds and for Graham dogs.

So, instead of all my birds going – because of my illness – which was the plan – I now find the ones I kept back due to their age or not been able to find the right home has reminded me of my passion for birds of prey and falconry.

I am so pleased about that and the notion that I could just leave it all behind and move on was I think a little naïve. On the other hand, my primary motivation to make sure the birds were found good homes while I still had time to do it. I did do that – as I have discussed in a previous news blog.

Tomorrow looks like a better day and hopefully the birds will be flying again. I will not complain about the weather because we do need the rain.

Talking about my book I have had another nice review – which is lovely. I am pleased that the book is proving useful. It has a long way to go and hopefully at some point it will become widely read. Although with any technical book you are appealing to a niche community with lots of other books on the topic available. I hope it may break out and be useful to others involved in animal care.

I will sign off with a picture of ‘Frank’  a lovely lanneret in the Hawk Room from this morning.