Wednesday 29 October 2014

Falconry at Herstmonceux Castle

A few days ago Tracy and I had an amazing day out with raptors, hosted by Gerard of East Sussex Falconry at Herstmonceux Castle. Here's Ash the Harris Hawk, a beautiful bird:

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The castle was a great setting for flying the birds, with beautiful grounds and woodlands:
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Here's Ash's brother, Cedar, posing in front of the castle:
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We spent some time with each of the Harris Hawks in the grounds, getting used to handling them and having them land on us:
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Then we moved into the woods, which is ideal territory for the hawks to hunt in:
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Plenty of other places to perch in the woods as well as our hands, so meat treats were definitely required to keep the birds with us.
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However, Ash did manage to catch a vole, some other kind of rodent and nearly got a hen pheasant as well! Here he is with one of his catches, and in the first photo you can see his nictitating membrane, caught by chance in the camera flash - this is like a third eyelid, but translucent so the bird can see through it.
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It was amazing watching them hunt - there was a big difference in speed compared to when they were flying to our hands for a treat, and in all cases we had no idea the prey was there until the bird went for it, having spotted his target from a significant distance.

Gerard explained the birds and their behaviour as we went along, and it was clear how well he knew the birds, and how much they trusted him too.
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As well as flying the hawks, we also flew two owls. Here's Halo the Barn Owl:
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He was struggling a bit in the wind, and sometimes landed in slightly random places as a result!
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Tracy said her head was a bit sore after this! But I think it was worth it for the photo... :-)

Halo also let me get some nice in-flight photos such as this sequence of him coming in to land:
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Next we met Bramble, a Long-eared Owl:
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We took Bramble into the woods, where she impressed us with her silent fly-bys.
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After the owls, it was time for us to meet a couple of falcons. First up was Neo, a Lanner Falcon:
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He didn't sit with us for long, all he really wanted to do was fly!
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Gerard got him interested by twirling a lure round on a rope, which prompted some acrobatic flying from Neo!
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Before long he got hold of the lure, and took it to the ground to eat:
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After which he got a Quail's head as a reward for his performance - slightly gruesome, but just what he wanted!
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After Neo, we got to meet Atom, a Merlin - the smallest type of Falcon in the UK
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His challenge was to chase a lure being held up by this quad-copter drone!
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No problem for him though, he got straight in there!
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He brought the lure back to the ground to eat, and waited for us to catch up with him.
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All in all, an excellent day, and one I can recommend to anyone! Visit East Sussex Falconry to find out more...
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Also, I too quite a few more photos than the ones used in this blog, you can see them in a Flickr album here.

Mike

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