Book your Experience
Open Sessions
During the summer holidays parents are constantly searching for that special something to keep the kids entertained. Feathers and Fur has come up with the perfect solution. Every Wednesday throughout August at 11am we will be holding an experience hour giving you and your family the opportunity to handle and fly our stunning birds of prey. Have Willow land on your gloved fist, Billie soar over you and Acer speed past you like the wind!
We start at 11am and work on a first come first serve basis and numbers are restricted to 30 people.
Cost is £3.50 for children up to the age of 14 and £5 for adults. All children need to be accompanied by a participating adult.
Please feel free to call if you require any further information.
Myths and comments
As inevitable with anyone that keeps animals for show to the public, you are likely to come across the “all too good doer” who feels the need to express negative opinions about issues they are not fully informed on. Sometimes this lack of knowledge leads to devastating consequences for example the release of Mink from fur farms by animal activists has now lead to a massive population drop in the bank vole and other small mammals. So for the purpose of this blog I thought I would mention some of the comments I receive and the truth behind them, that when given the opportunity I try to explain to people so that they are able to make informed opinions.
1, Why are the Falcons tied down? It’s so cruel that they cant fly around.
Falcons are commonly kept on ‘Blocks’ when they are at flying and hunting weight, This is because falcons have very brittle feathers, designed so that they can achieve maximum speed when stooping on prey. At flying weight birds are prone to ‘Bate’ when excited about feeding and flying. If the bird was kept in an aviary known as ‘free-lofting’ they may fly towards the wire and damage feathers which would then inhibit their ability to fly well. Care is taken to ensure the birds have full manoeuvrability of their legs and comfortable access their water baths.
2, Birds should not be kept in small aviaries.
I would agree that this is an issue and birds should have enough space to move from perch to perch and plenty of height. However if the bird is flown on a regular basis such as our birds are who fly daily, I don’t feel the need to build them 6 story mansions. Also if a bird is able to gather enough speed in flight within an aviary it will most certainly damage its self on perches and wire.
3, Birds of Prey do not need water as the get all their liquid from their meat.
I have come across a number of bird owners that believe this totally stupid myth. I can honestly say I don’t think there has been a day when my female Harris Hawk has killed and then taken a bath of her own choice to wash her feathers. Birds need additional liquid permanently. This should be monitored in winter though as if a bird gets wet late in the day the low temperatures in the night can cause serious health problems.
And finally ……
4, Birds should be free to fly and its cruel to keep them in cages.
I agree with this and I will never keep a bird that does not fly on a regular basis unless it is at moult or is poorly. However one must not confuse the wild birds you see with captive bred ones. Wild birds are flying for a number of reasons. The majestic soar of the Red Kite is a territorial display and a food hunt, the glide of a Sparrow Hawk above woodlands can be a show off to females and the quick hover of the Kestrel along the road side is a waiting game of bird and mouse. Now I am not disputing that birds love to fly, I just have to watch my Peregrine showing off at a show to know that he loves it but I have also sat for 6 hours under a tree because Jack my Harris Hawk is too bone idle to move anywhere. I have jumped, waved my arms and whistled like an idiot to encourage a very over weight European Eagle Owl to try and fly a few feet when she is more interested in a very green bit of grass beside her. Birds do what they want and when they want. As I fly each of my birds I am grateful that they choose to return to my fist, happy with the freedom they have and free of the territory disputes, the days of starvation as snow covers the ground and the nice covers that protect them from any bad weather.
Yer I think I’d be one of my birds!
DIY
Of the many skills that running your own business entails I never envisaged that DIY would be one of them! In the past 8 months I have honed a much learnt saying ‘measure twice, cut once’ and turned my hand to a number of wooden structures including a table, a weathering, fencing, landing posts, aviaries, and today’s project portable perches for our up and coming show season! I am very proud of them hence today’s blog with pictures!
Portable Perch
If you want to come along and witness first hand these amazing perches in action (and support us) we’ll be at Winnersh Village Show this coming Saturday and we are centre stage!!! Very excited! Willow, Billie and Acer will all be making an appearance along with Ash in his box if I can keep him there! Currently Ash is sitting watching out the living room window but I have no doubt that in about 3 minuets he will be causing havoc and trying to fly to the top of the curtain pole!
Winstone is coming along great and has started to cotton onto the fact that his wings help him fly!! Jade has been teaching him in our flying field and although still nervous of everything that’s not human Winstone will soon be joining the team.
Our sad news is that Tilia will be leaving the team for a short while. Her traumatic fox attack as a chick has left her with a very nervous disposition and although we have tried and she flies perfectly with one on one training she is still very nervous of the public. In order to help ’Chill’ her out and to allow her a chance to replace her damaged feathers she will be moving to a secluded site and just allowed to relax!
Well I am off to sew chicks out of beach towels and rescue Ash from the curtain pole !
Owl Photos
So just a short post to bring you some pictures of our new babies, Winstone and Ash have grown so much in the short time that we have owned them. Both have discovered their wings, although Ash is only making 3ft at the moment!
We have had some amazing few days with the business with a wonderful day spent at Twyfords Donkey Derby and then Willow and Acer had a day out at South Lake school in Woodley. Thank you to both for such an amazing day.
Ash 3 weeks
Ash Asleep today!
Brand New Tawny Owl
Well today was the day for another addition to the Feathers and Fur family. Please welcome Oak or Quercus or Ash we haven’t decided yet!!!! He however is a Tawny Owl and is currently just under 3 weeks old. Winstone is a little put out that he is no longer the baby of the family! ‘Tawny’ (for now) comes from a wonderful centre in St Albans where the parents where on show however the mother does not look after the chicks so both Tawny and his sister were hand raised by Mandy and Dave of Willows Falconry Centre. It was lovely to spend a day with people as equally as passionate as we are and shared many similar views. A big thank you to them for such a wonderful job. Well for now its feeding time and I have to sneak the day old chicks out my mothers fridge before she notices I put them in there !!!!!
New man/owl about the house
Introducing our newest team member ‘Winstone’ the Bengal Eagle Owl. Well actually the congratulations go to Jade as Winstone is actually her first own bird! (I’ve already warned her that it’s a slippery slope once you’ve got your first, as that’s what happened to me after one Harris Hawk – what’s another 9 birds!)
Winstone is 6 weeks old is in currently undergoing a process called imprinting. Basically Winstone is living with Jade every single moment, experiencing everything from screaming children (sorry to hear about your head Dylan) to the TV, dogs, cars, and even scary mean chickens!. Everything that happens will help Winstone on his way to being a calm and hand able member of the team.
He is a light phased Bengal Eagle Owl which means that he will eventually look similar but smaller than our European Eagle Owl, Billie and hopefully a lot lighter.
Winstones into everything at the moment and his growing body means he eats a lot which of course in turn means he poo’s a lot! Sharing your house with a baby owl is a smelly business (I hope my family don’t read this since our new Tawny Owl is coming to live with us next week!) but Jade has taken to it like a true pro. Just to show a down side to the ability to purchase Owls so easily, I actually met a lady today who’s other half had just bought a 1 year old Barn Owl from an “apparently” and for the moment will use this word with trepidation “experienced” bird of prey keeper, who sold this barn owl in a parrot cage, claiming it lived very happily for the past year in it. Unfortunately its silly people like this that show keeping birds of prey in a bad light. But its people like Jade who take the time to come and volunteer and learn all they can before even considering a bird of their own that will receive the full benefits and truly understand the wonderful bond between keeper and bird. I hope the man does not own a Harry Potter cape and wand!
Also big thanks to Winstones first family in Liverpool, Lee and your lovely wife have done a cracking job and we promise to keep you up to date with all his activities.
Here are some pictures of the happy new family. Another big thankyou to Ben, Jade’s brother who has been working tirelessly for the past week to build Winstones new aviary and for the moment Tilia our Buzzard is enjoying it!
When things dont go to plan!
So this weeks blog is all about when it goes wrong! Yesterday 23rd April started as an ordinary day, busy building the new weathering whilst Jade started on with the flying. Then when it came to Fagus, the Kestrel it was my turn to fly him. Weight was only less than quarter of an ounce over the 22nd so off we went to the field. His first three flights were fine if not a little sluggish but as we finished and were about to bring him in he decided to take off and headed across the road. This was nothing new as Fagus has been across in this field before so I simply headed out to find him. At first he was in sight then vanished into Scarletts Wood. At this point I lost him visually all together so Jade bought me the telemetry receiver and we managed to pick up his signal but due to the woodland the signal was bouncing all over the place.
Jade and I traversed the wood and could not pin point his signal. Suddenly it was lost all together and we retreated out of the woodland. On long range Jade picked up his signal but now it was coming from right on the other side of the garden centre! So we got in the car and tracked the signal across the A4 to a woodland about ½ a mile from the garden centre. Fagus was sitting tight in the trees whilst the Red Kites ducked and swooped over head. Finally after 2 hours of sitting in the woods Fagus decided that he preferred the opposite side of the A4 and took back off !!By this point we had been out for nearly 3 hours and I knew that Fagus had to be running out of fuel. However he continued to stay high in the trees until nearly 8.30pm!!
By now I had discarded the lure, Fagus’s usual flying tool and opted for the chick on a string trick. Tie a chick to the creance (the long string used for training birds before they are ready to fly free) and try to tempt Fagus down. It worked, he took to the wing and headed for the food, my aim is to allow him to start eating and to keep tweaking on the creance so that his feet lock on and I should in theory be able to walk in and pick him up. In theory perfect, in reality not so. 6 times we tried and 6 times I failed! Every time I walked in Fagus tried to fly away with the chick and then let go! By now the sun had set and I knew that I possibly only had two more chances to get him other wise it would be too dark for Fagus to see the chick. I allowed him to come down to the chick and then decided as a last chance I would try a technique I had heard of called ‘winding up’ which involves walking around and around the bird with the creance until you have wrapped the legs up and the bird can not escape. I am pleased to announce that it worked! Although Fagus managed to shrug all the string off fortunately it looped on his telemetry and I was able to get in quick enough to hold him! Bird on fist and I was heading home to a hot shower and bed! (Thank you to Jade and Ben for curry in a Tupperware tub in the field!)
One of the most common questions today though was what do I do now? If I let Fagus go will he fly away again? Well the answer is I don’t know I have feed him on the fist today and shall see what his weight is tomorrow. That’s the exciting thing about flying Birds of Prey, they do have their own minds and they are able to fly at will. I knew Fagus is inexperienced at catching food so I had very little doubt that I would be able to get him back, my main worry was the battery life in the telemetry for without that I would have no hope (let that be a lesson to anyone flying!). But all I lost was an afternoon, but I spent it watching my favourite bird having a whale of a time and saw so much wildlife that you rarely see unless you sitting in a field in the quiet sunshine with nothing to do other than watch the dot sitting in the tree!!!!
Acer, Our New Peregrine Falcon
Feathers and Fur is poud to present the newest member of our team Acer a Peregrine Falcon. Acer is male and is 6 years old. He was purchased from a breeder in Lancashire on Sunday.
Oddly enough he was actually once owned by none other than our very own James Bradbury but was bought with absolutely no idea of this. I found an advert on a reputable bird sales website stating a young male Peregrine once used for display work. I thought this sounded perfect for Feathers and Fur to add to our collection of British Birds of Prey and called the gentleman. He told me that Acer had been in a breeding aviary with a young female for the past 18month after he purchased him from a young chap that had moved job and didn’t have time to fly him. I thought Acer sounded great so James and I set out on a massive journey to Lancashire on Sunday. As we pulled up to the gentleman’s home James said that he recognised the man and suddenly had a idea that he may know the falcon in question! Low and behold the bird is one James had bought from a pest control company in London and had flown him for 2 year before starting a new job at a zoo and could not take his bird to work with him (zoos are very strict on movement of animals for obvious reasons) so had sold him to a breeder. Wow what a small world. Well I instantly fell in love with Acer, nickname Ace (it reminds me of something from Top Gun!) and can not wait for him to be flying free and showing off!
Why not come and visit Ace at Ladd’s Garden Village
Winners of the Prize Draw
Feathers and Fur would like to thank everyone that entered our prize draws over the Easter Weekend. Our Lucky winners were Ms Maynard and Ms Shrank.
Don’t forget that you can visit the centre 7 days a week, we always have plenty going on and animals to fuss over.
Also I would personally like to thank Dylan who came along and helped out 
on Saturday at the Children’s Day at Sheeplands. Dylan is our volunteer Jade’s little boy but a few years ago was bitten by a parrot and has since had a phobia of birds. But with a little patience and a very passionate mother, I think you’ll agree he looks massively at ease with the Owls now.
Happy Easter
Happy Easter Holidays
This weekend find us at Sheeplands Garden Centre with George the Giant Rabbit and Willow the Barn Owl. Come down and take part in our prize draw to win a Hawk and Owl Session at Ladds Garden Village.
Spring has definitely sprung at Feathers and Fur, Willow has definitely discovered that she can make noises that would attract a male. Her vocabulary has extended by at least 5 different noises! Even Sam and Jack seem full of the joys of Spring and Tom has started dropping feathers so much so her aviary looks like a feather pillow exploded!