There was a bit of a party going on at the ancient St. Cross Hospital in Winchester on Saturday. Inside the inner sanctum, a rather beautiful garden, it was revealed that the hosts were some rather bored and stand-offish hawks and owls. Nonetheless, they did deign to press the flesh with the plebs, when properly introduced. Ouch!
We got there late in the afternoon, just in time to see these avian aristocrats do their last rounds of flesh-pressing (Ow! Not so hard, your majesty!), and then being helped by their servants into their customised vehicles after a light snack, which appeared to be the bits of a chicken you and I never get to see, exclusively reserved for the well-feathered upper crust.
3 comments:
Mike,
When, on a day trip some years ago, we came across some birds of prey on display, my mother's [Late] second husband said he hated to see the birds in captivity. It put a bit of a downer on things.
I was fascinated though. They're such beautiful creatures and I spent a fair amount of time just enjoying the chance to study them close-up.
I think I read somewhere that most of the birds in this type of set-up are orphaned or injured and would not survive if released into the wild.
Stephen,
There are various "hawk conservancy" and "owl sanctuary" setups around Hampshire, and I think they're a mix of "rescue" birds, birds bred in captivity, and exotic species. Certainly most falconers these days seem to have Harris Hawks, an American species.
One of those hawk zoos had a condor the size of a barn door that they flew like a hawk, and one day it decided to explore Hampshire instead of returning. It was eventually persuaded back, but had made its point, terrifying the local wildlife into the bargain.
Mike
"One of those hawk zoos had a condor the size of a barn door that they flew like a hawk, and one day it decided to explore Hampshire instead of returning." — Slightly off-topic but there was a rumour that the green parakeets seen in some London parks were the result of Jimi Hendrix releasing a pair when he lived there. [This story turned out to be apocryphal though.]
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