Our new children’s experience, the Young Falconer’s Day, is proving a great success and I recently tagged along for the morning with Jimmy and his protégés to find out what it is all about.

The morning started with the young falconers (four lads in this case) being met in the car park, where their mothers gladly handed them over and went off happily for a bit of peace and quiet. Falconers’ bags and gloves were handed out and Jimmy talked about the jobs that need doing first thing in the morning ie. feeding the animals and cleaning. We walked up to the Sika Deer enclosure and the boys fed the two deer their favourite treats – carrots and deer nuts.

We walked down through the park stopping at various aviaries and talking about the birds in them, checking what jobs needed doing as we went. We went to the ‘Garden Section’ where the Barn owl and Tawny owl aviaries are and, since these birds had been moved out to their daytime quarters ready for their displays, the boys had the opportunity to do what we spend most of our time doing –namely cleaning. They scrubbed perches and water bowls, raked gravel, sprayed disinfectant, watered the plants, and swept paths around the aviaries.

It was feeding time for two of our big vultures – Bert and Parsnip, who were waiting eagerly for their daily meal. Once they were satiated we headed over to the Egyptian vulture aviary to give these two their occasional treat – chicken eggs, and watch them throw the eggs onto the ground to break them open before devouring the yolks.

Back in the study centre the four apprentices flew Avon the Barn owl, then it was time for a lesson on tracking and they had a chance to walk round the park with the telemetry equipment to find a radio transmitter, which had been secreted by Monica who was assisting Jimmy.

By now the boys were hungry and thirsty so they had a well-earned sit down with a drink and biscuits, while Jimmy gave them a quiz about some owls.

Next was a lesson in lure swinging, and they all did very well, none of them managing to wrap the lure round their own or anyone else’s necks.

The final activity was up in the Woodland Flying Arena where the boys put on their own private flying display for their mums (who by now had spent enough time away from their children and came to be entertained). The boys flew Tolkein the Milky Eagle owl and took it in turns to commentate on him, to much applause.

I think they all had an enjoyable morning – we certainly did!