A full range of weather options over the past two weeks ! Torrential rain, which is no good for flying in, baking sunshine, which is no good for flying in and then at last, perfect weather. Sunshine, but not too hot, and a strong gusty breeze that enabled the hawks to get high with ease. When they are a hundred feet up and circling lazily around, the customers can really see what all the fuss is about.
If hawks wore T-shirts with mottoes, their's would read " Never waste energy" and " Height is safety". That's why they won't fly high on a hot day, it's just too much like hard work to get up there. It's OK once they're at a certain height because then they may hook into a thermal, a column of rising air. But getting there is hard work, which is where the first motto comes in.
When they are high, the customers at NorthDevonHawkWalks get to see the birds constantly changing shape as they adjust their wings to take advantage of the changing wind conditions. As soon as the customer puts out their fist, with a piece of meat on it, the hawk changes shape dramatically. The wings are pulled in, so that they form an ' M ' shape , less wing surface exposed to the air means less lift and so the bird drops down from the sky and hurtles towards the fist. It never fails to get a gasp of admiration !
A few days ago we were at the Mid-Devon show, in Tiverton where as usual, the hawks were very popular, with people queuing up to stroke Artemis the sparrowhawk and admire Lady Macbeth and Cassius. My friend Tom brought along his African eagle-owl and we ran a competition to guess her weight raising £40 for the North Devon Animal Ambulance. The name of the winner will be placed on the website, www.NorthDevonHawkWalks.co.uk within the next couple of days, after I've contacted them to send them their free Hawk Walk voucher.
It's getting more and more busy as summer holidays lure people out to learn about falconry with us. We've been going out twice a day for several days now, and if the weather stays reasonable we should have another very busy August.
As the birds are moulting ( losing their old feathers and growing new ones), I have to be very careful with their diet, making sure they get a lot of very good quality food to promote feather growth, but balancing this with the need to get down to a flying weight for the days when we have customers. See previous posts for information about food for hawks.
