Hawks and kids

Not having any kids myself, I wasn't  that confident in dealing with them.  However, I've found, over the past couple of years, that they react so well to the hawks that it's just a question of acting as interpreter.  I explain why the hawk acts as she does and that leads us on to another question and soon we are quite happily chatting away.

Last summer was very good in the UK.  Very good weather and the economic climate seems to have improved greatly as well.  The end result was a lot more customers coming to Exmoor to play with the hawks, courtesy of North Devon Hawk Walks.   There were certainly  a lot more children.   I think word is spreading, and the hawks and I have been to several children's birthday parties.


Attached is a picture drawn by Finley, following his outing with us and his introduction to Her Ladyship.

Cassius at the Riverside Camp site

Here's Cassius coming down to land on a customer at one of the new locations for our walks, Riverside Camp site.  If you look half way along each wing, you'll see  one feather sticking up. This configuration breaks up the flow of air over that part of the wing and helps make it more stable at low speed. Ideal for landing.  It's the same idea as the " fingertips" at the end of his wings.
Thanks to  Marco Oliveira for the photograph and the kind remarks on Trip Advisor,

A new arrival.

I've recently added a Barn Owl to the flying circus that is North Devon Hawk Walks. At the moment he / she is just a ball of fluff with a beak at one end and claws at the other. Let's get some photos online.

Actually, the photo above is quite recent and shows the owl at about 6 weeks of age. The down ( or fluff) is beginning to come off and the adult plumage is beginning to show.

This was taken with a thermo-graphic camera and shows just how good the fluff is at keeping the bird warm. He/she is standing on my hand. The white bits are hot, blue are cold and the red is somewhere in between.

A new start.

Let's see if I can get this old blog site running again, with a couple of pictures of Lady Macbeth in action to begin with.