Asian Eagle Owl

For various reasons, I am now about a week behind with my postings; I have all the pictures though I don’t think Tuesday’s is up to scratch; I’ll try and put them up over the next week or so.

Today we had a trip with the U3A to Abbotsford, the home of Sir Walter Scott. Late last night, it became apparent that we didn't know when, or where, we were due to meet; we trawled through all our old emails and the U3A web site but that exercise refused to shed any light on the matter. We eventually managed to piece together estimates and, in due course, arrived at the correct place 15 minutes early; it was an unexpected pleasure as it has been known for us to arrive at the wrong venue a week late. Thus it was that we were able to join in the tut-tutting when some miscreant failed to show up.

It was a good day out apart from the watery tomato soup offered for lunch.
As we were a party of forty souls we qualified for tour guides, and they were very good; the stories they told about the great man were both interesting and amusing - it was just a pity that I find his books unreadable.

I'm a sucker for birds of prey, and there was a static display of four different varieties of eagle owl with this Asian model being the smallest of them. The two falconers on duty said that they couldn't fly them as they are too dangerous; apparently they are blessed with a vice-like grip combined with a ratchet mechanism. If they grab your wrist, they don't let go until your hand falls off. I particularly like this picture as there is a tiny, but perfect, SP in each eye.