A Grand Day Out in Fife

I saw another sunrise this morning - this is getting to be a habit… I deposited JR at her place of work and hot footed it (well, in the traffic jams in the car…) over the the Forth Road Bridge for my exciting day handling birds of prey!! I bought the voucher months ago, but haven’t had a chance to go there. And I wanted half decent weather, as it’s all outside. Well, I got a corker! I love driving through Fife in the sunshine.

It was balmy -warm even- and the other lady and I were the only two on the session. The lady’s grandchildren weren’t the slightest bit interested and went to play on the go karts instead.

It’s the Scottish Deer Centre, so has lots of different deer in the park, and they come up to the fence to be fed (you can buy deer food there). I saw an elk with a face about a metre long! However, it was the birds of prey I was more interested in…

They were amazing. First of all we took Les out for a walk round the park. He was the noisiest bird when we arrived, because he knew it was time for his ‘walk’. He’s a falcon (?). [EDIT: CBL's comment reminded me- Les was a Harris Hawk] I didn’t pay attention to the types of birds, as I thought I could check up on the website. No.

He followed us around the park, perching on fence posts and keeping an eye on who had a tit-bit. Then he’d swoop and land on your (gloved!) arm. I learned later on in the tour that the tit-bits were bits of one day old chickens. Eeek! There is a place that farms mice and chickens en masse for feeding zoos and wildlife parks.

As we got round to the last bit of the walk, Les knew he was getting his big treat - four or five whole (day old) chicks. He started walking along with us. On the ground. He stood in our way, making a different noise, generally being a nuisance. But he got his treat and thankfully, put his wings round himself to hide the gory scene from our sensitive eyes. No, actually, he wasn’t thinking of us - it’s just what they do.

Then we met a few more of the birds and I carried Whizzer, a Eagle Owl (African?) over to the flying area. Whizzer was a whopper and was quite heavy. He also made a lot of noise and if you hadn’t seen what was making the noise, you’d think it was a cow. Or a donkey.

At the flying area Whizzer and the wee snowy owl went through their paces, flying to land on our arms and getting a treat. I tried so many times to get a shot of him landing on my arm, but mostly missed off part of him. Or sometimes I just got part of him!

What a great day out! I took dozens hundreds of photos, but eventually chose this one of Whizzer on my arm. Check out that horizon!! I'm normally a stickler for horizontal horizons, but that would be asking too much of a one handed shot with a heavy owl on the other arm, which was extended out as far as I could to keep that beak away from my nose!

On the way back I popped in to visit my grandparents in Kingskettle cemetery. My aunt is also there. And I could report to Uncle A that the heather on the graves is thriving.

A grand day out!