Falconry at the Castle

 I spent yesterday evening on the lawn of the Castle, looking at birds of prey.

The information about the event had mentioned it would be a good idea to bring your own stool, so I took my incredibly useful folding stool that I last used during Hay Festival.  There was a roped off area to one side of the lawn, and the audience just fitted nicely around the edge of it.  Some of the birds were outside under a canopy, and others were in Luke the falconer's van.  

First of all, he showed us a long eared owl - the 'ears' are actually feather tufts, and not used for hearing at all.

Then he showed us an Ashy-Faced Barn Owl - basically a barn owl, but with much darker coloration.  This bird did a bit of flying from a perch on top of an a-frame to his glove.

Then he brought out a peregrine falcon, and described how they hunt by basically diving on their flying target and punching them out of the air.  Mostly they go for pigeons, but someone at Slimbridge once witnessed a peregrine (weight about 1kg) bring down a Canada Goose (weight about 5kg)!

I was very pleased to have recognised the next bird, a saker falcon.  This was the breed that began falconry, about 4,500 years ago in the Middle East - and falconry is still a big thing in Arabia today.  As well as doing demonstrations like this one, Luke's birds are working birds, and the saker is his best bird for clearing pigeons and seagulls from landfill sites and airport runways.  They're not supposed to actually kill the pigeons or seagulls, but as he said: "Try telling the bird that!"

The next bird, a Harris hawk, comes from Central America, and did a bit of fancy flying for us.  One of the ways it hunts is to catch bats out of the air, which was demonstrated by Luke sending the hawk off to the branch of a nearby tree and then throwing a bit of chicken in the air - the hawk missed, but gave the general idea.  This bird was also well trained enough to fly over the heads of the audience, so Luke stood behind the crowd and got the bird to fly from the perch in the arena.

Luke bought this bird from the Chester Falconry Centre - when I went to Chester a few years ago, I saw the centre from the city walls when I was walking round, but sadly the centre had to close during covid, and had to sell their birds.

The final bird was an eagle hawk, the smallest type of eagle.  This one was still in training, and Luke attached a long string to its jesses (the leather bits that go round the bird's legs, which the falconer can hold onto when the bird is sitting on his glove).  The birds have trackers on them, but best if they don't fly off in the first place.  As he said, it's like training a dog on a long lead before you let them run free.  The eagle hawk was a bit reluctant, but did fly from the perch to the glove several times successfully.

It was an entertaining and educational evening, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Wye Valley Falconry has a website at www.wyevalleyfalconry.co.uk