I would like to thank everyone that attended the official opening of Woodlands Falconry and Bird of Prey Centre on the 15th of November.

And to all those that couldn’t make it, but sent their best wishes.

The whole day had a fantastic atmosphere about it and somehow or other the sun managed to shine all day. (I had prayed to every god I know; from Gneisha to Thor, with a special “please” to the Aztec Sun God)

A big thanks too to the speakers; Siobhan from Wicklow Leader who helped me so much. And Terry Flanagan from “Mooney Show” fame who was so good to change his plans to be there.

And a huge thank you to Saoirse Ronan who said a few words and cut the ribbon for us, and to herself and her parents who gave some super prizes for the raffle.

Anyway, it couldn’t have went better and I just wanted to thank everyone for putting in so much work.

Cheers,

Tommy

My first ever bird of prey was a kestrel. I was about fifteen years old and fascinated by hawks of all kinds, so when a young kestrel was handed to me after it had obviously fallen out of a nest I was more than ready for the challenge. I trapped mice and starlings to feed it on and the lurchers were kept running through the nights to make sure there was always rabbit meat available. After spending weeks rearing him, re-reading every falconry book I could lay my hands on more…

There is a definite winter feel to the air these days, crisp cold mornings with the last of the leaves giving up their green and slowly turning to brown. Any damaged feathers the birds have not moulted out yet will probably be held on to ‘til next year. My little female hobby which I had great plans flying again this year was extremely slow and only dropped half her tail feathers so she needs a little bit of repair work on her tail if I am going to get her going again. more…

Hello and welcome to Woodlands Falconry Blog.

I have never done a blog before so looking forward to putting my inane thoughts and day to day falconry adventures down on paper, well I know it’s not paper and adventure might be too strong a word, but please feel free to drop by every so often and by all means leave a comment, not just about the blog but about the site in general. As I write this the site is not by any means finished so there will be a lot more interesting stuff going on there.

There will also be a forum soon, open to everyone for “any” falconry  or raptor related subject, so that should be interesting too.

Interesting days ahead I think!

Tom