morning at the Lavenham Falconry 19/AUG

I always wanted to have birds of prey on my arm. Did Marcus know that? Apparently it was my birthday pressie from him to have the experience. Since then, as usual, English weather hadn't been well every time he re-booked. Well, it'd been about 5month, finally, we had good enough weather for these birds to fly. They don't like to fly on hot sunny day or rainy day. Luckily, the Sunday we went wasn't very hot, actually, it got hot time to time when sun came out, poor owl! It was too hot and bothered for her. anyway, I was very excited to meet these birds. 

 

It was a bit of an job to find the place, we didn't really get lost, but some people were. When we got there, it was small land with a hut with dogs barking inside, friendly horse chilling out inside fence, and cute bench by the little river. I didn't know what I was expecting, but it wasn't how I imagined. Anyway, after 10-15mins or so, the owl guy with a lad turned up in a white van. Then slowly, one by one, people turned up in their cars. Not sure what was going on, but I went along anyway. The owl guy was counting up number of us who booked to do the "experience". Then, this point, I trigged we were there to have birds-on-arms-experience!!! ☺ Yes, took me a while to figure out (as usual) we were about to meet cool birds on face to face. (To be honest, up till then, I thought I just was there to see some flying birds...)

The owl guy looked a bit grumpy. Apparently, it was his day off, someone else was going to do the job, no wonder he looked a bit pissed off.

Him and his companion brought first bird.  He was very handsome. 

We all wore thick leather glove(it was a bit sweaty-smelly...☹), and the owl guy gave us bits of chicks on our hands. He called the bird, and he landed. Awesome! We all had a go at it, and we all stroke the beautiful bird. After that, we had 2 birds at time too. They were quite playful, and bit cheeky, they flew off to the trees and river to hunt. They came back quickly. It was magic moment when I faced with these birds with eye contact. Everyone's energy changed and somehow it was very calm atmosphere all the time we were there. Here's some photos of the morning. We had eagles, then owls. Apparently, there birds were very sensitive, when they got fed with some chicks ,which were born in shed, got very ill due to lack of vitamin D. It was very easy to cure, they got fed with vitamin D tablets and got well. Makes you think doesn't it. We are what we eat, very true. 

He liked climbing up on head. Looks very comfy and settled there doesn't it?

 

    

 

This is how big this owl is. I didn't realized till when I saw this pic. Gourgeous isn't he?

This is cute English owl with bits of chicks in her mouth. I thought she was really cute♥

By then, everyone was taking photos of birds. I wonder how many pics they took looked similar or an half wing in the photos............

This eagle(?) was the last birds we met. She was very cheeky. ☺

 

It took about 3 hours or so. we got there about 10am-ish, finished around 1pm I think. The owl guy explained lots of things but I don't remember much of what he said. All I remembered was everyone had really soft eyes when they looked at these birds. "soft eyes" means when people look at babies, their eyes get "arrrrrrrrrh",  you know what I mean??? ☺☺☺we all had the same look on our faces. Even grumpy owl guy had soft eyes, and very gentle and loving towards the birds.

One guy who came with his family got locked out from his car, his little daughter locked the car with the key inside. And he was ringing AA/RAC from someone else's mobile phone! Only a short time, but felt like lots of things happened already. After the owl experience, we were heading off to the beach....where? Whalberswick!!!

By the time we got to the beach, it started to get grey and temp went down. Still, theses English people were enjoying last bit of the sunny Sunday. Surprisingly, it wasn't as cold as what I expected. It was cold, but bearable.

This is English beach in Suffolk on sunny cloudy day. Not like Greece, France or La Gomera, still, beautiful and I love it.

How to get to the Griggs meadow:

• Turn left at the Swan Inn pub onto Water Street (turn Right at this pub if you’re coming from the other end of the High Street via the B1071 Church Street).
• Follow this road to the bottom of the hill until it bears sharp right onto Brent Eleigh Road (A1141).
• Stay on this road for 2.6 miles – Griggs meadow is signposted on the right hand side of the road (there are gates across the car park area).

This Lavenham Falconry is a family run business, and small. Unlike big places, they were very friendly people and very relaxed atmosphere. And peaceful!!! I liked it because, there's no shops, no cafe, or no big car park with expensive parking fee. it was free car parking. Limited amount of people, just enough to have everyone to experience the birds.

Here's contact detail;

Email: info@lavenhamfalconry.co.uk
Telephone: 01787 249691
Mobile: 07960 879 600 (Steve)

Opening Hours: 9am til 5pm 7 days a week