Last Sunday, I finally used a birthday present that I received last year; a day out at a Falconry Centre. I had the choice of a number of Falconry centres in Scotland, but I ended up choosing Phoenix Falconry. You can find their website here, and you can find them on TripAdvisor here, as you will see, they come highly recommended!

The Experience

Phoenix Falconry offer a number of different experiences. I opted for “The Phoenix Experience”, which consisted of:

This half day action packed experience is designed to get you closer and more interactive than you ever imagined possible as you join us a our new luxury facility in scenic South Perthshire to handle and fly stunning birds of prey from around the world!

You'll learn about their ecology, biology and psychology and personally fly and handle up to 12 species of hawk, buzzard, owl, falcon and eagles including species as varied as the huge American Bald eagle to the 200mph Peregrine falcon!

I am happy to report that I had a great day, so much so that I have actually booked into another event, “A Walk in the Wilderness”. If you are at all interested in attending an event at this facility make sure and book soon. Speaking to the Falconer on the say, it turns out that Phoenix Falconry will no longer be doing public events, this will be their last season of doing them. Turns out that it is not economic for them to continue doing them. Instead, the centre will be concentrating on their breeding programme, which it reported to be going from strength to strength.

The birds

In total, there were 7 different birds of prey shown to us. It really was a fascinating day, starting with a small Harris Hawk, and finishing with a Bald Eagle. Some of the photos that I took on the day can be seen below (there were far more actually taken, and if you are interested, I would be happy to let you see them, but be warned there are lots!)