A month ago or so me and my BF went to Birds Of Prey Centre in
Bedfordshire. It was one of the most
amazing days that I have had for many reasons but the most important one is
that I spent most of the morning with Owls. We started off by being introduced
to three different sized Owls – Pete, Harriet & Petri.
The lovely person from the centre (whose name I can’t
remember) has talked us through the owls and allowed each of us to hold them.
Pete, the male of the three, had really big beautiful eyes. He’s the type of an owl that has hairs
sticking out between his eyes and if you stroke them it makes him fall asleep.
That’s pretty amazing when you see it done, they start snoozing in half a
second.
Harriet was the biggest of them all and she did weigh quite
a bit. I could hold her only for a little bit of time before my arm started
feeling very tired.
And there was Petri – the smallest one. I hold her for the
longest time and she weight barely anything. I could hold her quite close to
myself and it was just wonderful. Whilst I had her on my arm some sort of eagle
flew buy and she suddenly shrunk half the size and became very skinny and
still. I was told that’s how small owls try to avoid to be killed by other
birds – trying to blend into the environment and also look as small as possible
so that they would not be spotted. When my BF was holding her she tried to fly
away couple of times and was really interesting to watch her flying in the same
spot, flapping her wings as hard as possible. She was tied to BFs hand that’s
so she couldn’t fly away.
Later we actually were allowed to fly some of other owls
which was just brilliant. Seeing them fly towards you quietly and landing
perfectly on your arm is something that everyone should experience. Owls don’t
really make any sounds when they fly so if you wouldn’t know that they are
flying past you then you could miss them or get really startled by them.
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| Me flying a barn owl |
Having this experience with them is beyond describing how
much fun I had and how much more in love I am with them.
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| Baby Owls |
Yours,
Tina Teaspoon
P.S. The lovely person from the centre (whose name I can’t
remember) has told us that Owls are actually not very smart birds and there
association to knowledge is just a myth. Just because they hand around Athena
does not mean that they are intelligent. That kind of did upset me a bit as it
crushed my heart. That’s what I always thought about Owls, how smart they are.
Nevertheless, Owls are my most favourite birds.
P.S.S. There also was another show of birds after the owl
experience day which also was really good fun. We saw eagles, pelicans and all
sorts of other birds performing some flying and other tricks. If highly recommend
to go to Birds Of Prey Centre and spend there a day. (http://www.birdsofpreycentre.co.uk/)
