Hawk walk

We went on a hawk walk this afternoon and, although I've done one before and also had a birds of prey experience involving less walking, this was by far the best. We walked through beautiful Sussex countryside for an hour and a half with Jason and Nickol, the falconers, and two of their beautiful harris hawks, Jericho (pictured) and Tokyo. There were two other hawk walkers, Barrie and Callum from Redhill, and the three of us had the hawks flying to our gloves the whole way round while Mr DawnAgain took photographs (he, apparently, had a bad experience with a budgie during his childhood).

Things took a dramatic turn towards the end of the walk when one of the hawks decided today was the day to catch his first crow. Being group hunters, his fellow hawk soon joined him and then we all had to run down a hill, across a stream and into another field to see them both mantling as they shared the unfortunate crow for their tea.

Overall it was the most fantastic experience and I so enjoyed spending some real quality time in the company of these beautiful and skilful birds.

Afterwards we went with Son1 and the dogs to Mum and Dad's for fish and chips and spent a very jolly few hours in their company.