28 June 2020
/How are you?
A warm welcome to our newest subscribers and thanks for letting me into your inbox this week.
We’ve been enduring some wet, windy and foggy weather in the East Neuk over the past couple of weeks but I’ve selected some of our best days from the last fortnight to share with you today.
Let’s start with Moffat, my young tiercel peregrine…
Moffat’s training
We picked Moffat up in mid-June when he was 8 weeks old. As those of you who saw our Live at 5 2 weeks ago will know, we collected him when we thought we’d lost Logan, but we came home to find Logan waiting for us on the roof of the Falconry Workshop, so we now have two tiercels!
They are very different birds, although both are bred by the same breeder and by the same parent peregrines. But, where Logan was hand-reared by the breeder, and has ‘imprinted’ on people, Moffat was reared by his parents. The difference? Noise! Or lack of it. Parent-reared birds are not noisy at all. So, you can easily tell the difference: Logan is very vocal around me, whereas Moffat is silent.
I have shared the earliest stages of Moffat’s training with the members of The Scottish Countryman’s Club, but here’s a wee clip of a recent bit of his progress.
Our Family First experience brought our first family since Lockdown
At last - we’ve had some visitors to the Centre! You know how much I have missed hosting clients here, so it was a huge relief and a very welcome return to almost-normal when I hosted the winning family of our Family First experience giveaway yesterday.
Fergs!
Mark and his family dodged the showers and avoided the worst of the mist long enough to spend an hour with me and the team of birds. To observe social distancing, I don’t do a full handling session in a family First experience, but the family got to see Fergus (of course), Logan flying loose in tame hack and Arabia flying away (!). We then tracked her on my phone screen with my new Marshall GPS system, watching her head over towards the shore before tracking her back to Hammer Inn! They left a lovely review but it was absolutely my pleasure to have them here.
Fantastic experience! Steve is very knowledgeable and the birds put on a great show! Highly recommend a visit.
M.T.
Preparing for our returning customers…
A Family First experience lets you get together in groups of up to 8 to enjoy a socially-distanced bird of prey experience at our centre. We’ll spend an hour with you, introducing you to the team of birds and flying them for you, not to you! It’s just £50 for up to 8 people. You can see more about the product and book it here.
Early summer in the East Neuk
Early summer in the East Neuk is very often a combination of long blue-sky days and dull haary (foggy) weather and you can see the two extremes this creates in these images.
We’re just a mile away from the shore where the Coastal Path tracks along the Balcomie Links golf course, shown below. It’s a stunning coastline, rounding the Fife Ness point and hugging the shores of the longest continuously inhabited land in Scotland. (Mesolithic remains, from the 8th century BCE, were discovered when they started work on the 1996 Craighead course that you’ll also find at Crail.)
We’re just a mile away from the shore where the Coastal Path tracks along the Balcomie Links golf course, shown above. It’s a stunning coastline, rounding the Fife Ness point and hugging the shores of the longest continuously inhabited land in Scotland. (Mesolithic remains, from the 8th century BCE, were discovered when they started work on the 1996 Craighead course that you’ll also find at Crail.)
And we neighbour a field of beautiful Limousin cattle. But when the haar (fog) is thick, it can be hard to see them until you’re right up close. However, when it lifts, which can happen quite suddenly, you are in for a real treat…
Altai and the third eyelid
Altai sat with us while we enjoyed a glass of wine in the evening sunshine last week. As well as getting some great close-ups of him, we got a really clear photo of his third eyelid, which you’ll see in the blue-sky image below. Click on it to enlarge it.
Like us, birds have two eyelids that operate vertically, as ours do. But, to shield their eyes, especially when hunting or in a fast descent, they also have a third eyelid that works horizontally, like a shutter. It’s called a nictitating membrane. Here’s what Audubon says about this cool feature: “Nictitating, for all its alliterative syllables, simply means “blinking”. This extra eyelid is hinged at the inner side of the eye and sweeps horizontally across the cornea. The nictitating membrane is largely transparent, and it helps keep the eye moist and clean while guarding it from wind, dust, and hazards.”
Phase 2 of the easing of Lockdown
As we head into July, we’re in Phase 2 and seeing the cautious re-opening of some businesses in the retail and tourism sector in Scotland. Self-catering properties and small shops with street access are opening next week and we’re all hoping for the continued improvement in COVID-19 numbers that will allow us to get to Phase 3. At that point, I should be able to offer my full range of products once again. For now, you can see what we can do in Phase 2 here but please call if you want more information. I’m more than happy to answer any questions and I very much hope to see you at Hammer Inn before too long.
Meantime, take care and stay safe and keep in touch.
Best wishes
Steve
P.S. If you’d like to catch up with my previous email/s, you can find them all here.
Over on Instagram recently…
