Falconry Displays

The Days are longer which is wonderful though at this time of year they often seem to be cold. On occasion you have that warm sun which is so nice and is foretaste of what is to come.

We took the on loan sports car out top Pershore Abbey a couple of weeks ago, The weather was fab and having the car added so much to the outing and the Abbey itself is in the portfolio of the architect’s company my wife works for – so she was keen to see it. In fact several years ago we attended the Medieval fayre in Pershore in the parkland adjacent to the Abbey – we provided the falconry display. The centre of the town is lovely with the Abbey in the middle and with free parking on a Sunday you can’t go wrong.

What made it even better were the wild peregrines nesting on the Abbey on a nesting platform provided by the Abbey. Apparently in a previous tear they had nested in a gutter with disastrous results when it rained. The female had just laid her first egg and both parents spent the afternoon calling to each other. The female or falcon sitting high up on the building above the nest platform and the male or tiercel was sitting right at the top of an adjacent fir tree. They are not great tree sitters as a whole preferring ledges on cliffs or in this case a building. The tiercel took off and disappeared we assumed to go hunting but when we got back – after our walk around the park – he had returned. It was great to see – a real privilege in fact. They have a camera on the falcons with their own you tube channel. Below is  picture of the Abbey with the tree with the tiercel sitting on top.

The last few days Spring has really arrived – although not seen a swallow yet – but the buzzards are displaying to each other and I saw a great dipping display flight by the male while the female sat in a tree. Once he had done enough he joined her in the tree and they mated immediately. This was down at the flying field and on the same day I took a picture of Frank our lanneret on the lure.

He is flying really well. I think he looks really smart. He is also in breeding condition at this times of year as are all birds flown in high condition. Which brings me onto my book ‘Falconry – aspects of care of the trained falcon and hawk’ which is still riding high in the Amazon charts. Awesome books sells it for under £26 but I have not have gone through the process of buying the book I do not know if there are any catches – so I cannot recommend it but it is worth looking at.

Here is another picture of the hedgerows in blossom. I thought from a distance the farmer had put sheep in the field. These are lovely old hedgerows and really beautiful. A great year for blossom.