Bird of prey thread

We’ve got peregrines at the Walthamstow Wetlands. I’ve not seen them yet but, over the summer, I found a dead common tern on the path that had been part-eaten, and reckon the peregrine had done that.

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^'the peregrine :heart_eyes:

Have to drive through Mid Wales from time to time and it always massively cheers me up seeing a red kite. They were nearly extinct in the UK a few decades back I think, so it’s really brilliant they’ve started to recover.

YESSSS Awkward DiSers holding massive eagles REPRESENT

30184361523_b46213c3ea_z

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That’s a great hat

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Dunno, your eagle is doing the whole majestical thing pretty well right there

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It is a good hat, I wear it nearly all winter.

(it is in my avatar pic, as is another bird of prey, if you really squint)

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Nah, you’re doing a great job not being eaten by that massive bird in your pic

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This pic was taken at a falconry day at the Raptor Foundation in Cambridgeshire. It was a fucking miserably cold and damp November day and it was still comfortably one of the best things I’ve done in the last decade. They give you a glove and hand you a series of increasingly terrifying (and heavy) birds of prey. And you get to take part in all the flying demonstrations and that.

(they’re a rehab/sanctuary for the birds first and foremost; the visitor/experience days are what they use to fund their conservation work. They seem like Good People all round)

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This is worth following: tweets from the JA Baker book that @anon45164313 mentioned upthread: https://mobile.twitter.com/jabtheperegrine

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My old place of work used to hire people (an actual business), to fly Harris hawks over the building to scare pigeons.

Got in the lift one day with the handler and a massive hawk on his arm
Couldn’t think of a decent joke

can’t move for red kites in west yorks these days either. mad considering how rare they used to be

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saw a sparrowhawk cruising over my garden once (Streatham!)

red kites though, yaaaawwn

When I first moved to Leeds I got a book of local pub walks to do, one said that if you were lucky you may spot some Red Kites, 18 years later and (as @shrewbie said) they’re all over the bleedin’ place!

It’s pretty cool to be able to see them flying around from my living room or back garden, and I live on a suburban estate!

https://community.drownedinsound.com/t/post-the-best-picture-of-you/14365/110?u=colinfilth

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Had a sparrowhawk swoop into our garden once and take a sparrow.

Right I’m going to make enemies now.

I have read “The Peregrine” as well as number of other books about falcons. To be honest reading it cover to cover it gets a bit samey. I think better to dip into it for the odd couple of daily entries. Otherwise it reads similarly to “Got up. Ate cornflakes. Went to bed. Got up. Ate cornflakes. Went to bed. Got up. No cornflakes today. Went to bed.”

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Have you read H is for Hawk? It’s more of a memoir about grief and processing loss framed around acquiring and training a hawk. I really loved it.