Tag Archives: owls

Birds of Prey

wpid7712-C59F7066.jpgThis is the first of a series of posts that shall crop up in the coming weeks that are from a trip to the UK.  Both my parents had significant birthdays this year and parties for both of them were to top and tail a trip back for us.  It has been a long time since we were back and it was nice to see a lot of people while we were there.

wpid7716-C59F7098.jpgWe arrived in Heathrow early in the morning and picked up the rental car.  We didn’t have anyone to see that day and our hotel wouldn’t be free until later in the day so we had a mission to keep ourselves busy and to stay awake.  Consequently, we headed down to the New Forest in search of a bird of prey sanctuary.

wpid7708-C59F7021.jpgWe had found this place online so didn’t know much more about it than the website.  The GPS got us there without any trouble.  I had bought the Europe maps for our Garmin because, despite years of getting around the UK without having heard of GPS, now I guess I am dependent!  The place was not huge but it had a very large collection of birds including lots of species of owl.  We wandered around looking at the various birds before a small flying demonstration took place on their flying field.  Apparently some of the bigger birds would be flying at the second show but we were content with what they had earlier on.  We didn’t want to spend all day there.

wpid7720-C59F7141.jpgAt the end of the flying, they brought out a couple of baby barn owls.  They were just in the stage of fledging but were still very fluffy and we were encouraged to stroke them to see just how soft they were.  Very soft and very cute.  It’s almost like I am back in my cute baby animal posts!